The Thing with the Feathers
by Sabari
Summary: There is no peace on earth for the Winchesters when a woman's preoccupation with Angel wings threatens to spell The End for Castiel. Good will to men, indeed.
1. Make This Christmas Right, My Friend

_**Author's Note: Set in season 12 post ep 12 (2017), and contains spoilers for that season and previous ones. Slightly AU because December probably actually took place over the course of events in the episode "First Blood."**_

* * *

_We live in troubled days/Oh my friend  
We have the strangest ways/All my friends  
On this one day of days/Thank God it's Christmas  
_-**Thank God It's Christmas **_**(Queen)**_

* * *

The interstate just north of Austin, Texas was too near the equator for snow, even in the middle of December. The temperature wasn't low enough to prevent precipitation -if there had been any- from melting on the way to the ground. There was not even a wind to add extra chill to the night air. At three AM in this spot, the wind always stopped, leaving the northbound interstate utterly silent except for the ceaseless whizzing of vehicles passing and the occasional horn honk shattering the calm.

The reason for the preternatural hush was known to Castiel, though it did not presently concern him, except in the corner of his consciousness which was always concerned about anything that affected the universe on a cosmic scale. Humans seldom made note of these wind dead areas, possibly not even noticing them because the death of the wind in these spots lasted only a short time, the duration of which they were well-capable of measuring, but which was too short to garner much attention.

"_C'mon, Cass. You've gotta get up here for Christmas. Just say yes and I'll quit callin' you every five minutes,"_ Castiel could hear the desperation in Dean Winchester's over-the-phone appeal, though neither the appeal nor the desperation made the slightest bit of sense to him.

"Dean," Castiel sighed wearily, "This annual preoccupation with a pagan holiday never ceases to confuse me, especially coming from you and Sam."

Castiel did not add aloud that he had noticed that this year the preoccupation had changed substantially. In former years, Sam and Dean seemed to go out of their way to ignore Christmas. They didn't mention it, didn't decorate for it, and _certainly_ did not set up a Secret Santa event. But this year, despite every possible distraction -including the arrival of the British Men of Letters, the conception of Lucifer's child, and the resurrection of their own mother!- the Winchester brothers had inexplicably gone to more than the required or expected amount of effort to deck the halls, including a ridiculously large tree they had cut, hauled into the Bunker themselves, erected in the library and then decorated (primarily with improvised home-made ornaments constructed from empty beer cans and bottle lids). They had also acquired enough seasonally themed intoxicants to allow them to flood several rooms of the Bunker and still have enough left to fall into drunken oblivion until mid-January.

"_You're not even gonna tell me about how Jesus was born in May or something?"_ Dean asked in surprise, then added more thoughtfully, _"Jesus _was_ real, wasn't he?"_

"Dean-" Castiel began, and his impatient tone caused Dean to interrupt him at once.

"_I'm serious, Cass!"_ but apparently not about the reality of Christ, for Dean continued,_ "Christmas is a time for family togetherness... so families can do things... together. As a family,"_ the protest had started strong, but it got a little weak by the end.

"Are you done?" Castiel inquired, after Dean mumbled his way into silence, "Because I still have a Nephilim to find, and it's a long drive to Tuscon."

"_You think Kelly's in Tuscon?"_ Dean asked skeptically.

Castiel sighed heavily, unsure whether he was more reluctant to admit his doubt because it forced him to overtly acknowledge that he was proving inadequately equipped for even so simple a task as finding a pregnant woman, or because that acknowledgment would give Dean additional leverage in persuading him to drive up to Lebanon.

After all, Castiel was already on the right road, aimed in the right direction, and it would take a little more than twelve hours to get there, barring car trouble or holiday traffic snarls. All he had to do was get back on the road, which he had driven off the side of and parked next to when his phone rang.

"_All the more reason to visit the Bunker,"_ Dean said brightly when Castiel hesitated too long, seizing the opportunity with the ferocity of a starving squirrel on an acorn, _"Really, Cass, you could probably use the break. When was the last time you stopped driving in circles long enough to say 'Hi'?"_

"When Ramiel stabbed me," Castiel recalled darkly, which provoked a brief pause.

"_Okay,"_ Dean said slowly, almost cautiously, _"I'll admit, that wasn't a lot of fun. But that's all the more reason for you to come up here. No cases, no Princes of Hell, no Satanic babies, just the Christmas game and way too much eggnog. We get drunk enough, we might even sing a Christmas carol or two, but I promise you that _nobody_ will stab you with Micheal's Lance."_

"It wouldn't hurt me now," Castiel pointed out, "Crowley broke it, remember?"

"_Cass!"_ that edge in Dean's voice was back, _"You _cannot_ leave me alone with these people on Christmas. You were originally assigned to be my Guardian Angel, so get up here and guard!"_

Now Castiel _knew_ Dean was desperate.

Dean never, not once that Castiel could recall, brought up the origins of their association. Even though it might have made Castiel's initial introduction to Mary Winchester much smoother, Dean had not mentioned him to her and -once they were introduced- he never let on how they had met, but had instead left that task to an unwitting Sam, who -after casually mentioning Dean's death- was forced to explain that particular snapshot in their long history to Mary in considerably more detail than he was comfortable with. Castiel only found out about it later because Mary had felt moved to thank him for pulling her oldest out of Hell, which shocked Castiel speechless for a good number of seconds. It was an acknowledgment of gratitude that Dean himself had never made aloud, and one Castiel certainly had not expected from Dean's mother so many years later.

Besides that, the last time Castiel had acted as a Guardian Angel for the Winchesters, Dean had gotten terribly bent out of shape about it, refusing to even speak to Castiel for some days afterward.

"Dean, what's wrong?" Castiel asked.

It was Dean's turn to be hesitant,_"Nothing. Nothing's... wrong. Not exactly."_

"But?" Castiel encouraged when Dean fell silent.

When Dean responded, it was surprisingly quickly and frantically,_"_But_ I'm trapped in a bunker with a brother who wants to work through Christmas like Scrooge McDuck, and a mom who doesn't realize that the last time we celebrated Christmas, a pair of pagan gods almost had us in place of a turkey dinner, after which _I_ got sent to Hell, which kinda puts a damper on whole the yuletide spirit thing."_

"Your mother knows you died," Castiel pointed out.

"_Yeah... but, Cass, she doesn't know we don't do Christmas every year, and... if we tell her-"_

"Then you'll have to tell her everything," Castiel concluded for Dean, "I understand."

He didn't. Not entirely. But he had gathered that Dean and Sam didn't want their mother to see all of their many, many scars. He didn't understand why, merely accepted it as some peculiarly human quirk he hadn't figured out during his brief stint as a mortal. Humans seemed to always go around projecting idealized versions of themselves, and carefully trying to only notice other people's own idealized versions of themselves. For reasons Castiel didn't understand, this was not considered the same as lying.

What he _did_ understand, finally, was why Dean wanted him there.

Dean had been using Castiel as a buffer between himself and Mary almost from the moment they'd met in the Bunker. Sometimes he wanted Castiel to be a physical buffer, other times more of an emotional one. Dean never said as much, and Castiel never called him on it, pretended not to notice, though it was hard to miss when Dean carefully sat himself at the breakfast table so that Castiel was between him and Mary on the few occasions when all of them happened to be together.

Castiel had also noticed an increasing insistence from Dean that he participate more in human rituals, such as drinking beer after a case, and gathering for a meal; neither of which had any physical benefit to Castiel, as Dean knew full well. It was baffling, as was the rather recently manifested overt and strenuous concern for Castiel's welfare from Sam and Dean.

Humans -especially Winchesters- were a constant puzzle to him. It was frustrating at times, but it was also a large part of what made them such amazing and wonderful creatures.

"Alright," Castiel finally caved in, "I'll be there."

"_Yes! Good. You come here, and... and I'll take care of... whoever it is you're supposed to be getting a gift for,"_ Dean said, clearly elated.

"That shouldn't be too hard," Castiel replied dryly, "Because it's you."

Dean responded to this, but Castiel was no longer paying attention to him. A car had pulled off the road, turned around and now shone its too-bright headlights directly into his truck's cab.

No amount of light or darkness ever used to be a problem for Castiel, but his vision had been dimming slowly but disturbingly ever since The Fall. He hadn't noticed at first, because his eyesight as a human had been appallingly bad (though perfectly normal by human standards, as best he'd been able to determine), and in some ways it had been still worse when fueled by borrowed Grace.

More and more these days -despite having his own Grace back- he found himself squinting against uncomfortable amounts of light, or needing artificial lights in dark chambers in order to see.

"I have to go," Castiel absently told the phone, and hung up without waiting for Dean's answer.

As Castiel squinted in the glare of the other vehicle's headlights, he managed to make out the driver as she exited, sauntered around between the fronts of the vehicles, and came to the driver's side door of Castiel's truck. Absently, Castiel wondered if she would fit the term "hot blond," which had been one of Dean's favorite turns of phrase of late, though never in front of his mother, indicating he thought she would disapprove of his terminology... or perhaps the way he said it.

The woman at the window was a picture of elfin elegance, trim and fair, with white-blond hair that fell in a cascade down to her hips and wide, sky blue eyes. The time of dead wind had passed and the fresh breeze picked up and played with the ends of her long hair. She smiled at him in a friendly way, and indicated that he should roll down his window so they could hear each other. Of course, Castiel could have heard her perfectly well with or without the window, but she didn't know that. So, out of learned human politeness, he rolled down the window for her.

"Your truck stall?" she asked sweetly.

"No," Castiel answered flatly, "I got a phone call."

"At this time of night?" she sounded surprised, and her frost-white eyelashes fluttered in response.

Plucking at his thread-bare social skills for something to say, Castiel said, "I have a friend who works nights," by her silence, Castiel thought he had perhaps not said enough, so he continued, "He wants me to come and stay with his family for Christmas. He's been very persuasive."

"What? No family of your own?" the woman asked, sounding almost disapproving for reasons Castiel couldn't begin trying to guess at.

It was an unbelievably awkward and hopelessly complex question to try to answer, Castiel thought, but he couldn't tell if this was a normal query for a stranger met by the side of the road at night. He wanted to disengage from this conversation, but was compelled to forge ahead by the need to expand his ability to socialize with humans, which meant actually trying to interact socially, which seemed the only way of improving his skill at the activity.

"His family _is_ my family," Castiel said finally.

She tilted her head, causing some of her hair to fall in front of her shoulder. She raised a hand absently to tuck it back, saying, "I thought you said he was your friend?"

Great. Now what?

"It's complicated," Castiel said, which he'd found was normally a Get Out of Conversation Free line.

Not this time, mysteriously, which was Castiel's first clue that all was not as it should be.

"Family usually is," the sudden hard, cold edge to her voice was unmissable, even for Castiel.

But the suspicion of danger came much too late, as the blond -hot or otherwise- quickly lowered her hand to her coat pocket, pulled a revolver out, aimed through the open window, and fired a bullet point-blank into the left side of Castiel's chest.

It had been a handful of years since he'd been shot with a bullet made of a melted down Angel's Blade, but Castiel found it no less shocking now than it had been that first time.

White-hot agony seared through him, even as he reflexively unlatched and kicked open the door, causing it to smack the blond, knocking her down. Despite this, she managed to get a second shot off, which found its way into Castiel's right shoulder, causing him to lose his sense of balance. He had intended to climb out of the truck and draw his Blade, but instead he tumbled out of it head first, rolled, managing to get one foot under him and his Blade into his hand before a third shot tore through his abdomen, knocking him flat. New pain flowered there, but weakness and tremors spread still more rapidly from each point of impact, until he was shivering flat on his back, from which position he was displeased to discover he could not locate the strength to rise.

"Damn you! You split my lip, you feathery bastard," the blond was wiping blood off her face with one hand, even as the other raised the revolver and shot Castiel twice more, sending his consciousness spinning helplessly into the pitch black of the unknowing and unknowable.

She stepped quickly over to the Angel, and checked for signs of life, before committing herself to the task of lugging the body -larger and heavier than her own- to her vehicle and wrestling it into the backseat, which she had set up especially for the occasion by lining it with plastic to contain the blood, which the Angel had shed prodigious amounts of already.

Angels never did anything in half measures.

She paused to look at the Angel a little more closely. She thought it had picked an aesthetically pleasing vessel – in a slightly shabby nerd kind of way. She had allowed the vessel to cloud her judgment, because it looked rather shy and unassuming, certainly not as ferocious as the warrior she had just successfully bested. But of course that was just the vessel. The Angel was definitely a Seraph as she had expected, one quick to go for the kill if the Angel Blade in its hand was any indication.

Remembering what it had said about a phone call, she riffled hurriedly through its pockets until she found a cell phone (faintly wondering what an Angel needed a phone for), which she tossed onto the ground, then hauled the heavy Angel into the back seat. From behind the seat, she pulled a tarp, which she used to cover the body.

Then she slammed the back door of her sedan -which she had left running when she went over to the truck- and walked briskly to the driver's side. A few quick back and forths at the side of the road and she was turned around the right way. She merged onto I-35 and headed north through the dark, not looking the slightest bit like she had shot an Angel repeatedly before stuffing it in the back of her car and driving away into the crisp December night, even though that's _exactly_ what she'd just done.

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_**A/N: **_**_**_This story is completely written. I will be uploading one chapter per day.  
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**_**__**This is my sixth annual Christmas fic and, as with all previous stories of its kind, all the chapter titles are taken from lyrics of Christmas songs. If you want to know more about these stories, see the "Annual Christmas fic" section of my profile. If that doesn't leave you feeling properly filled with knowledge of the subject, feel free to drop me a message.  
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**_**__**Thank you for your time, and I hope you enjoy the story.**__**_**


	2. Things Others Only Wish They Had

_We have to learn to love one another/  
Just remember they could be us/  
Remember we all are brothers.  
_**-This One's For the Children ****_(New Kids On the Block)_**

* * *

Mary Winchester had never believed in Angels. Not really. Off and on, she had half-way sort of wondered if maybe -since there were Demons- there might just be Angels too. But it had been mere trivial speculation in frivolous moments, nothing truly serious. Her own resurrection after thirty-three years in the grave had come as less of a surprise than the existence of Angels.

The nature of them had been still more of a shock. The immediacy and ferocity with which Castiel resorted to violence in order to get what he wanted had been more than jarring, it had for a moment seemed too horrific for words, even though it had been the exact thing Mary wanted to do herself at the time, since every person Castiel went after had stood in the way of their finding Sam.

But she discovered, somewhat to her discomfort and definitely to her surprise, that she'd developed an elaborate mental image of Angels long before she'd ever seriously believed they were real, and Castiel had -in a matter of hours- shattered that mental image completely.

Angel violence was sudden, decisive, and astonishingly matter-of-fact even in its brutality. But if Mary had thought her picture of Angels had been erased entirely, she had another think coming.

Although Castiel had been injured in a fight while they searched for Sam, it had not truly come home to Mary until Ramiel just what that meant, perhaps because after that first fight she'd witnessed, he'd gotten up and almost immediately healed both himself and Dean. But the incident with Ramiel had been eye-opening and emotionally wrenching in a way she hadn't been remotely prepared for. She had seen it already, but it hadn't meant anything to her at the time. It had taken Micheal's Lance to really open her eyes to a bitter truth: Angels could bleed. Angels felt pain.

Angels... could _die_.

It had caused Mary to radically rethink her view of Castiel. He had initially frightened her, because he was so Unknown, and so powerful, and so unlike what she thought Angels should be. Still more frightening, in a bizarre way, was how well he knew her sons. To think a supernatural servant of Heaven knew her two boys better than she did was unsettling for reasons Mary couldn't name.

But there were limits to Castiel's abilities.

When Sam and Dean had gone missing, Castiel had been unable to find them. Mary later learned that Castiel had long ago carved symbols into their very ribs that hid them from all Angels, including himself; a revelation Mary had found disturbing, in part because it was another shockingly powerful ability Angels had, but also because it hinted at dark times in their history that neither of her sons wanted to reflect on, much less tell their mother about.

Once she began uncovering weaknesses and limitations of Angels, she was astonished by their number.

Until she read it in one of the books in the Bunker on one of the many nights not long after her resurrection when she could not sleep, Mary had not known Angels had ever been capable of flight or teleportation. She had assumed the wings were figurative, or completely mythical.

But Angels were _supposed_ to be able to fly. Yet Castiel did not. Never. When she'd finally asked Dean about it, he said that the wings of the Angels had been broken. When she asked if that hurt, Dean had stared at her like she'd grown a second head, though she couldn't tell if it was because he thought the answer obvious... or because the question had never occurred to him.

Yet perhaps the strangest thing was the almost blindly obedient way Castiel responded to Dean's orders, something that had angered her when her sons had gone missing. Castiel was an Angel for God's (also real, by the way) sake! What was he doing taking orders from mere mortals? She still had no answer for that, but in hindsight she recalled how quick Castiel had been to follow her own instructions on multiple occasions.

The incident with Ramiel had revealed something far more astounding, something Mary had missed up until that night in the barn, something even more shocking than the realization that Angels bled, experienced pain and could be destroyed: Castiel loved the Winchesters like _family_. Loved them.

Somehow, Angels understood the concept of family, and an immeasurably long-lived (effectively ageless) member of that holy race had chosen to view the Winchesters -humans whose lifespan was barely the blink of an eye on that grandly cosmic scale- as his kin.

Castiel's devotion, his willingness to fight, to wound, to kill, to endure injury and even death itself did not stem from something as simple as being a Guardian Angel as Mary had first supposed it must. It was not mere duty that drove him to act. It was love. Love deep enough that he would face the threat of "cosmic consequences" and take a lance to the stomach to protect Mary -whom he barely knew- simply because she bore the name Winchester, the name of his adopted human family.

It was awing, humbling and -inexplicably- more terrifying than anything else Mary had learned about Angels in the last few months, because it revealed how pitifully little she understood them.

Sitting at the table in the kitchen, sipping coffee, Mary wondered just what the Hell kind of gift she could get for such a creature, especially when that creature had given so much for her and hers, courteously accepting even her doubt in and fear of him without complaint.

Castiel had been there for Sam and Dean when nobody else was left. Mary didn't know all that her sons had been through, but what she could guess was horrible enough to contemplate. Dean had been through literal honest-to-God Hell. It had been Castiel alone who had the strength to pull him out, and the Angel had apparently been by his side ever since, through everything that had followed.

Somehow, a tea kettle or singing card seemed inadequate recompense for the celestial being that had done everything possible to protect the two things Mary held most precious in this -or any- life.

Not that it would have been any easier to think of what to get for Sam or Dean. Her boys were strangers to her. She knew almost nothing about them besides the fact that they were Hunters, something she had never wanted for her children. Beyond that, it had been over three decades since she had bought Dean a Christmas present, and poor Sammy had never gotten one from her. What kind of gift could she have gotten to make up for all that lost time? Perhaps getting a gift for the Angel was easier. At least with Castiel, she didn't have to be afraid of what he might say.

Castiel was always gentle with her, always compassionate. Towards Mary, if no one else, he was everything she had imagined an Angel would be. He might not understand it if she bought him a drinky bird with a goofy hat, but she was confident he would be gracious about it.

Graciousness was something that Mary saw her sons had never been taught, least of all Dean, who had a tendency to be brusque or even snappish when he addressed people. He'd tried at the start to pretend he was still the sweet-tempered boy Mary had known, but the facade quickly shattered, leaving her distraught and wondering what had happened to so utterly destroy the Dean she knew. As for Sam, well, with him it was like walking on egg-shells. He clearly loved the idea of her, but he did not know her, any more than she knew him. She was terrified of shattering whatever picture of his mother Sammy had carried with him all these years, afraid that -after all he'd surely gone through- it might break his spirit to find out that she wasn't who he'd imagined she was.

The truth was, mother and son were scared of each other. Sam was clearly terrified she would suddenly just... evaporate. Mary was afraid that she would obliterate whatever precious image of her that he had. Between them, they had enough fear to panic a pachyderm.

But now, to the problem at hand. Tea Kettle. Singing Card. Drinky Bird.

God, it had been easier to buy gifts for her mother-in-law. At least her mother-in-law had been human at the end of the day, and had never taken a lance to the gut for her.

* * *

The Angel was a lot heavier than Harrow had expected, and its weight was an unexpected hindrance to her plans. This was not her first time moving a body, though it was the first time said body had been alive when she did so. It was also the first time the body had been vessel for an Angel.

It seemed absurd for an Angel to be this heavy. Up until the wing snapping, they'd been flappy-fluttery things that flew easily and instantly from port to port without so much as a running takeoff.

According to ordinary physics, that meant they should have been outrageously light, that the Angelic essence should have made the vessel buoyant, or virtually weightless somehow. But that was clearly not the case. Harrow supposed it was unrealistic to expect Angels to adhere to Earthly laws of physics, when -unlike Demons and monsters- they had _never_ belonged to Earth, and were in fact Heavenly things descended briefly to this mortal plain. Hell, their damn wings didn't even manifest physically, which would certainly have made this all much easier.

So the thing was heavy, even though it seemed like it shouldn't be. Though not particularly large, it was much taller and heavier than she was. While getting it into the car had been something of a hassle, that was nothing compared to dragging its unconscious body up a short flight of stairs. However, the hardest part was getting it around the corner of a narrow L-shaped hallway once they were inside.

The Angel got caught in the turn, and it took substantial wrestling to get the creature loose and convey it through the doorway and into the room beyond. But Harrow finally managed to accomplish the task.

"Now, you damn bastard," she gasped, sitting on the floor next to the Angel to catch her breath, "This next bit would be a lot easier if you hadn't been quite so lively earlier, because you'd have fewer holes in you. But I guess hindsight hasn't done you much good since you stopped being able to time travel."

Harrow pulled a multi-tool pocket knife out of the back pocket of her jeans, and flipped it open. The Angel was on its back, and it was a minor matter to pull its coat and jacket open so she could get at the places where bullets had torn through its vessel.

Funny thing about Angels: Once you got them open, they were actually pretty squishy, and it was a small matter to use the knife to work each bullet in its turn out of the Angel. At least some part of this was relatively easy, though it would have been a helluva lot easier if the thing hadn't made her shoot it so many times before it went down, but she supposed if Angels were prone to doing things the easy way, a whole lot of human history would have turned out very differently.

When she'd finally pulled the last bullet out, she patted the Angel's shoulder and said, "Consider that your Christmas present. Now you owe me mine."

The Angel, still unconscious, didn't respond. But that was for the best. She figured that it would be no more amenable when it woke up than it had been since she'd first shot it. In the meantime, she had work to do to make damn sure the thing didn't get a chance to do worse than split her lip, because she certainly expected it to try, especially once it learned why she'd gone to all this trouble to acquire it.

* * *

As Mary was beginning to turn over the possibility of buying Castiel a tie, her musing was interrupted by Sam entering the kitchen. He'd been stirring around earlier, and left the Bunker entirely for almost an hour. Now he was back, and evidently in search of coffee. Sam was a morning person, and Mary constantly wondered how she and John could possibly have produced one of those.

"Morning, Mom," Sam said, like it was the most normal thing in the world, except for the part where there was -as always- a tremor beneath the casual tone of his voice, as if he were afraid she was a soap bubble that would pop at the slightest provocation.

"You boys didn't get in until late last night," Mary observed, though it had in fact been more like early morning, not night at all. Hoping her son couldn't see through the facade of relaxation, that he wouldn't think she was being 'too much of a mother' when he was used to having no mother at all, she asked, "Rough job?"

"Just a vamp's nest in New Mexico," Sam assured her, "But Dean insisted on driving straight back to the Bunker the minute we were done. I swear, if he's 'nesting' again, I'm gonna lose it."

"Nesting?" Mary repeated with raised eyebrows, wondering if this was another dark piece of the past the boys had neglected to mention despite Dean's original promise to tell her everything.

"Yeah," Sam said, pouring himself coffee and taking a seat across the table from her before continuing, "When we first started living here in the Bunker, Dean... he went a little overboard with the whole 'homemaking' thing. For a little while there, I was afraid he was going to take up knitting doilies," he took a sip of the coffee, which proved to be hot, "It wasn't pretty. Though I _do_ miss the food."

"Dean _cooks_?" Mary asked, almost more shocked by this than the fact that her oldest had been to Hell.

Having grown up on the road, Mary had learned a lot of ways to get food into herself that didn't qualify as cooking. There was never time, never the right amenities in the hotels. As far as she could determine, her boys had led that kind of life only worse, yet somewhere along the line Dean had picked up both the inclination and the ability to cook. _Actually_ cook. Based on Sam's tone and expression as he recalled Dean's cooking, it seemed like Dean not only liked to cook, but was actually _good_ at it.

It was hard to reconcile with the picture Mary had been getting of her oldest, who seemed to have but two passions in life: Hunting and the opposite sex. He had given up trying to hide his interest in the latter almost immediately, and had never tried to conceal the former, not even at the start. Cooking seemed way out there all by itself, unrelated to any part of Dean that Mary had gotten to know.

"Not lately," Sam replied with a regretful sigh, "Guess we've been too busy with things."

'Things' had become the stock term both Dean and Sam used to avoid even oblique mention of all they'd been through, signifying how little they wanted to talk about it, even with their mother. Or perhaps _especially_ with their mother, who hadn't been there for them when they needed her most.

"I see you made it okay," Sam said after a few awkward seconds of silence had gone by, "You seemed pretty busy there for awhile."

Mary shrugged, "It's Christmas. I made the time."

"Huh," was his only response to this, and it sounded as if that surprised him.

In truth, Mary herself had been surprised when Dean sent her the text, suggesting they all get together at the Bunker for Christmas. He seemed to have gotten through being angry with her for leaving, so the friendly nature of the text didn't come as a shock. But Mary remembered bouncing around growing up, and recalled clearly that there hadn't been much to any of the holidays. Though she'd made a big deal over Christmas after marrying John, she had imagined that -growing up as they had- neither Sam nor Dean had gotten all that closely acquainted with the holiday after her death. There was always another monster to hunt, never time to stop and have a Christmas with the family.

Frankly the idea of spending Christmas with the boys had scared her at first, and she'd been unspeakably relieved when Dean had insisted on a Secret Santa, saying that none of them were in practice for this, so it would be easier if they each had to only get one gift.

Dean had at the time made no mention of Castiel, apparently taking for granted that Castiel was to be included. All things considered, Mary supposed it made sense for him to think that way, though she was still struggling just to accept that her children were already grown, that she'd missed out on their entire childhood. Having an Angel with years of history with her boys that she hadn't been there for as part of the family only made things more complicated and difficult for Mary. But because of those years together, for Dean it must have felt perfectly right and natural that Castiel would be included.

What Sam said next came as news to Mary.

"Dean spent about twenty minutes outside of a gas station convincing Cass over the phone to come," he shook his head, "I guess Angels aren't much for pagan holidays, even if they've been Christianized."

"Cass didn't want to come?" Mary asked, moderately concerned by the possible implications of that.

Dean had spoken as though Castiel's joining them for Christmas was a given, not hinting even a little that he actually hadn't talked to the Angel about it yet, or that there was any possibility that Castiel would be reluctant to come for some reason.

"I think mostly he just hadn't thought about it," Sam replied cautiously, after a moment's consideration, "Thing is... our relationship with Cass... it hasn't always been simple. Even when nobody was messing with him... he still had these... ties to Heaven, that kinda kept us at a distance. And... well... sometimes we weren't the best friends to him either."

"Messing with him?" Mary repeated, not liking the sound of that.

"Heavenly brainwashing and torture, usually. Sometimes possession by the Devil," Sam answered almost dismissively, seeming to have acquired a thought train of his own, "I guess it wasn't really until The Darkness that we realized... we had a brother who'd been there with us the whole time, and we'd never..." Sam fell silent as though realizing there was a whole story he didn't want to explain to Mary, but after a little bit, he concluded, "That _I_ just never realized was there. Not 'til the Mark, and everything that went down with that."

Mary wanted to ask about the Mark, knowing there was a story there, but she was afraid Sam would clam up and shut her out, start avoiding her so he wouldn't have to talk about it. The Mark was somehow linked to the Darkness, and Mary knew that was God's Sister (God had a sister. Who would have guessed?), but the details had always been rendered rather sketchy or not mentioned at all. Obviously it was impossible to avoid talking about it entirely, because it was God's Sister who'd brought Mary back to life, but the brothers did their best to avoid it as much as was possible.

That Dean's bond with Castiel ran deeper than Sam's had seemed obvious to Mary, but she hadn't been entirely sure because she didn't know how to read Sam. But now Sam had said as much, and Mary thought she detected from his expression that maybe he hadn't even liked Castiel before whatever happened... _happened_. She also wondered what Sam could possibly mean by 'heavenly brainwashing.'

She decided she didn't much care for the sound of it.

"Anyway," Sam concluded, "Unless we've got a case involving Heaven or Hell... sometimes even then... we usually leave Cass alone to do his own thing. Figure he's busy with... Angel stuff."

"Angel stuff," Mary repeated, but Sam did not offer to elaborate this time.


	3. Never Set You Free

_Dreams are nothing more than emotions/  
But they'll come true.  
_-**It's Christmas**_** (Modern Talking)**_

* * *

When Castiel woke, he didn't know where he was or why, and at first he didn't even remember how he'd come to be there. His first tangible discovery about his new situation was that he'd been bound by handcuffs attached to a heavy chain that was bolted to the floor.

There was nothing inherently special about the handcuffs or the chain, and it would ordinarily have been a simple matter for him to break one or both. But Castiel's next discovery -though it was really more coming into awareness than discovering, for he could feel it right away but it took him a moment to process- was that he had been put in a room so oppressively warded against the power of Angels that he wasn't left with the strength to stand, much less break a chain.

In fact, he was too weakened to heal himself effectively.

Given his extensive history, Castiel was not as distressed by his circumstances as one might consider normal. For Castiel, normal -even by Angel standards- had never been in the cards, although it had taken him a long time to actually notice that he truly was and always had been different from the rest of his kind in a strictly indefinable -yet very real- way. The first time he remembered being aware of it was when he'd been assigned as Dean Winchester's Guardian Angel, though the awareness hadn't truly come home to roost until Castiel had been killed in the line of duty and God had seen fit to bring him back to life. _That_ had gotten his attention a bit.

By Castiel's standards, being wounded, kidnapped and tied up was a fairly usual occurrence, though certainly about as tedious as urination had been when he was human. Both were processes he would rather not go through, though stopping the one had come at the cost of the enjoyment of peanut butter and jelly, and he didn't want to even consider what he'd have to give up in exchange for ridding himself of the other, so he was willing to put up with occasionally waking up in prison and getting tortured rather than find out.

"Oh good, you're not dead," a female voice said.

The statement of fact was one that Castiel had found incredibly surprising many times in his long life. This time was no exception, as his memory of what happened at the side of the road slowly patched itself into place, and he realized he'd been shot repeatedly with bullets that could have killed him, though the bullets made of melted down Angel Blade had apparently been dug out of him while he was unconscious.

The voice continued, "I was worried about that. When the first bullet didn't stop you, I got a little anxious. Then you split my lip and I got pissed."

That sounded reasonable, though Castiel couldn't find the reason why he'd been shot in the first place. He vaguely remembered this voice. It was the woman who'd talked to him by the side of the road. Talked to him about... well he wasn't clear on that, but he was fairly certain that he hadn't said anything to warrant shooting him (not this time anyway), and he was dead certain that most drivers on the road didn't carry revolvers loaded with bullets capable of killing Angels.

"It was bad enough finding one of you feathery bastards," the woman continued airily, "If I'd killed you and had to find another, I think I would have just _screamed_."

Castiel felt he should be contributing something to the conversation, but for the life of him he couldn't remember how vocalizing worked, so instead he just lay in silence and listened. The more he heard, the deeper his incomprehension became.

"This was all much easier when you idiots had functioning wings. Didn't have to deal directly with you at all, and it was all _just fine_. But then you had to go and Fall, not to mention becoming an endangered species, and it's been a pain in the ass getting what I need out of you ever since."

He wasn't sure, but Castiel thought that didn't make a lot of sense. Most people who wanted to capture Angels for whatever reason had found it a lot easier since their wings had been broken. It was also a lot easier to avoid Angels when it took them a human amount of time to get anywhere. From the perspective of those looking to keep out of the path of Angels as well as those looking to capture or kill Angels, the Fall had been something of a boon. As for being an endangered species...

"But do the customers care?" she sounded more irate, and her words seemed to make less sense than ever, "Of course not! They don't care what the product supply is, their demands stay the same, so a dead Angel would've been a real kick in the balls after everything it took to even find one of your kind."

This wasn't the first time Castiel had heard himself referred to as a 'product,' but he'd never particularly cared to have that term applied to him. Usually it meant that a situation was going from bad to worse. Despite the unfavorable conditions at present, Castiel had no trouble imagining what worse might look like. He didn't have an especially vivid imagination, but it served well enough for this.

"If I ever get my hands on the celestial chicken that snapped the wings of the Heavenly Host..." she paused, apparently trying to find the right words, "Well... I'll do more than shoot him with Angel bullets, that's for sure. In fact, I think maybe I'll roast him over an open fire. Holy Fire, of course."

Castiel decided that he should avoid mentioning the part he'd played in the Fall, since he didn't find the idea of being roasted over a Holy Fire at all appealing. It was true that he hadn't been knowingly responsible, and had in fact been only one of the ingredients for the spell at the end, but most Angels didn't make that distinction, so this woman... whoever she was... probably wouldn't either.

He wondered why a human -and she _was_ human- would have such strong opinions about the wings of Angels and the breaking thereof. He also wondered if he should try lifting his head enough to actually look at her, but that seemed like more trouble than it was worth at present.

"Anyway, you'll have to forgive the accommodations," the woman said, "It's not my habit to make Angels suffer -bad karma, you know- but I didn't think I had a choice. You were a lot more aggressive than I expected, a lot tougher too. So maybe I've gone a little overboard with the warding. But the alternative being what it is... you understand that I can't risk you escaping after all I went through to get hold of you in the first place, don't you?"

That sounded suitably ominous. Castiel hadn't liked this room on waking, and some time to get used to it hadn't improved his opinion any. The floor was cold and hard -concrete, he thought absently- the walls were featureless and gray, the illumination in the room dull and artificial. But what he specifically disliked about the room was his inability to sense beyond it. The warding had confined his senses to things within the room, and he didn't like it one bit. He remembered the small, closed in way the world felt when he was human, and didn't care at all for this reminder.

Even so, Castiel wasn't excessively worried. He'd been in far worse shape before, and had captors who went out of their way to hurt him even when it wasn't necessary and wouldn't get them anything they wanted. At least this woman had the courtesy to merely wound him as much as she'd felt necessary to subdue him. Granted, it didn't feel great, and he didn't like it, but there were worse alternatives. Besides, he'd heard the threat that he would never escape before, and it had never proven true. Given a little time, he was confident he'd find some way out.

Admittedly that would be a lot easier if he could sit up, or at least self-heal sufficiently to stop his vessel from leaking fluids into a growing pool on the floor. Over time, replacing that blood through limited healing would become exhausting, but of course there wasn't really another option. Vessels didn't work very well when they ran out of blood, so he had to replace it once it fell out or else risk losing the vessel entirely. Being an insubstantial wavelength of celestial intent trapped in the room with a corpse was not something he wanted to deal with, and he was even less interested in trying to deal with finding another vessel later, or deciding if he even _should_ find another vessel.

Since Jimmy Novak was already dead, Castiel didn't have to worry about taking someone's life for his own purposes. It was already done, and he could not undo it... probably wouldn't even if he could, because Jimmy Novak was at peace in Heaven with his wife now.

The woman was still talking, but Castiel's concentration was faltering, so he wasn't sure what she was saying. He hoped it wasn't important. He realized he was going to be unconscious again, and decided he might as well just give in now and get it over with.

* * *

"Son of a bitch!" Harrow saw the Angel's eyes close, and thought for a moment that the creature had up and died on her despite what she'd done to keep it alive.

But examination revealed the thing had simply passed out again. It was still leaking quite a bit, and while that was theoretically good news because it meant the Angel was badly weakened, it was in practice less than ideal. She didn't want the damn thing at full strength, but it also was no good to her dead. Not until she'd gotten what she needed out of it.

She'd wanted the warding strong, but now it crossed her mind that the warding might in fact be _too strong_ for a maimed Angel, even one as powerful as a Seraph.

"It's just one thing after another with you, isn't it?" she grumbled.

Harrow knew it was a difficult task to keep an Angel under control in captivity. That was why most who dealt with Angels killed them. The balance between rendering them harmless and killing them outright was a very delicate one. Harrow had done her reading on Angels before undertaking this project, and she knew that they were crafty at escape, being both intelligent and gifted with the patience common to most immortal beings. The general consensus was that any Angel would eventually find a way to escape or die trying. Even Lucifer's Cage had not been impregnable. It had taken the Apocalypse to pop the locks on that thing, but it _had_ happened nonetheless.

Fortunately, Harrow didn't need to keep the Angel for eons.

Unfortunately, Seraphs were a lot flimsier than Archangels. It was virtually impossible for any force less than God Himself to keep an Archangel under control, but they were also sturdy buggers, and that in a strange way made caging them up a lot easier than caging a Seraph, which started to wilt like a plant without sunlight if one wasn't careful about how strong the warding was.

Oh well. It wouldn't do to pout about it.

She got up and went to work on the warding.

* * *

Dean hadn't slept well. By some measures, he'd never slept well in his life. But he'd been sleeping particularly badly ever since Mom had vacated the Bunker.

It wasn't just that he was hurt, or even that he was mad... it was just that... well... something felt _wrong_.

Thoroughly acquainted with the sixth sense of any Hunter who made it more than a year in the life, Dean knew better than to completely ignore it, but he couldn't seem to pinpoint what it was that his sense was trying to warn him about. There were so many possible sources for such a feeling that it was nearly impossible to pin it down to just one thing, though he knew with trembling certainty that there _was_ a specific wrong thing that his Hunter sense was trying to warn him about. He knew Sammy could feel it too, had perhaps become aware of it before Dean had.

Something was coming. Something _bad_.

But the sleep that followed the New Mexico job was disturbed by some new sense of trouble, different and separate from the other. After finally reaching the Bunker and crashing in bed, Dean had been awakened several times with the sense of being vulnerable, exposed... _unprotected_.

He'd been so convinced by the feeling that he'd even gotten up a couple of times to make sure the security systems in the Bunker were all active, and that everything was quiet as it should be. Yet no matter how many times he got up and reassured himself that all was well (or as well as it ever got around here), he still felt tense trying to go back to sleep, and woke with the same inexplicable sense of dread that some protection he _should_ have was not in place any more.

Though it came to him a couple of times that Cass had sounded a little odd on the phone last night, it did not cross Dean's mind that the feeling of being "unguarded" could have anything to do with his _Guardian_ Angel. Dean did not think -nor had he ever really thought- of Cass as his Guardian Angel.

Though Cass had doggedly served in that capacity as well as he was able even after the Apocalypse -clinging to the role even in violation of the will of Heaven- Dean had never viewed him that way. Cass didn't _have_ to do any of the things he did for the Winchesters, his tie to them was purely voluntary, and had been for many years now. That had been the whole point of Team Free Will.

So when Dean finally gave up on the notion of sleep in favor of a coffee-based substitute, he did not then pick up his phone and call Cass. The man had said he was coming, and Dean had promised to stop harassing him if he agreed to do that. That meant he shouldn't call and make sure Cass hadn't changed his mind. Besides being rather pointless, doing so would be more than a little insulting to Cass. Right or wrong, once Cass committed to action, he really _committed_ body and whatever it was Angels used in place of a soul to it. That was true on the big stuff, and it was certainly true on the small. Cass had said he'd spend Christmas at the Bunker, and Dean had no reason to think he was being lied to.

Assuming Cass had told the truth, come literal Hell or high water, he'd come. Not that Dean thought that Hell or Heaven cared one bit whether the Winchesters spent Christmas together. Of course not. That would be egocentric and absurd. And yet... _and yet_ Dean _still_ felt a growing disquiet inside.

But if Cass was in trouble, he'd call, right?

Dean dismissed that question immediately. Of course he wouldn't. Cass was perpetually trying to take on and fix all the bad in the world completely on his own, without bothering Sam or Dean with any of his problems. Which -in itself- had started to be more of a problem. Cass seemed to be continually surprised and baffled by the fact that Sam and Dean worried about him or went out of their way to look out for his well-being. If Cass was in trouble now, guaranteed he was trying to handle it by himself.

On the other hand, what were the chances Cass was in trouble? Aside from looking for Kelly Kline without much hope of success, he wasn't on a job, and he'd agreed to temporarily abandon that pursuit in favor of coming up to the Bunker. He'd be at the Bunker in a few hours, assuming nothing delayed or distracted him. What trouble could he possibly get into just driving on the interstate between Lebanon and wherever it was he'd started from? Surely none. Surely.

By the time Dean got to the kitchen, he'd worked himself into a quite refined state of denial of nervous agitation which seemed to have no basis in anything real. Even when you dealt with supernatural monsters and End of the World crises on a regular basis, you still had to have some sort of tangible reason to get worked up. Dean didn't have one, but was increasingly distressed anyway.

Very much against his conscious will, Dean found himself pondering what he'd do if he had to spend Christmas alone with Sam and Mom. Somehow, he found the prospect unbearable. Everybody sitting around, pretending to be jaunty and festive, smiling and trying to fake some sense of normalcy in the least normal situation Dean could imagine. He didn't know why having Cass around would help, as the man was often the very definition of social awkwardness, but the thought of having Cass here made him feel better anyway.

Of course, it was also important because Cass was family, and it was high time they started consistently treating him that way. He'd more than earned his place in any family celebration or holiday.

Hell, truth be told he'd earned that right long ago. Maybe not when he first pulled Dean from Hell, because that was just an order he followed, but certainly by the time he got exploded by an Archangel for the first time. He'd screwed up since then (a lot, actually), but who among them hadn't? Besides, since when was family about whether or not anybody had screwed up lately?

The coffee did nothing to calm Dean's nerves, or slow down his fast-spinning thoughts, nor did it even remotely begin to stifle the inexplicable desire to -if not phone- at least text Cass and find out where he was. Dean still didn't think that was the source of his feeling of unease, it was just that this whole Christmas thing had been dominating his mind lately, and... well, Mom and Sam were already here, so the most obvious way for things to go wrong was for Cass to fail to arrive somehow.

It was just a direction for his baseless worry to aim itself. That was all. Nothing more. Surely not. Cass had been through the wringer this year, surely he'd earned a respite. Not that the cosmic machinery that operated the universe gave a single damn about what anybody had been through.

Dean decided to go see what Mom and Sam were up to.

Not to distract himself or anything. Just... because. Because _nothing_ was wrong, and he had no reason to think otherwise.

No reason except for his sense of impending doom.


	4. A Feeling That I Just Can't Shake

_I don't know why you're taking so long, Christmas/  
Well, I've been waiting all year for you to get here  
_**-Come On, Christmas **_**(Matthew West)**_

* * *

The next time Castiel woke up, he had no trouble remembering where he was, and was relieved to find that the warding had been lifted enough for him to get up, though he halted the process at sitting on the floor because his injured state hindered further progress, and he was still not strong enough to heal significantly. It was a particularly vicious circle he was stuck in, too weak to heal because of the warding, which forced him to continually put in effort to prevent himself from bleeding out. Work that could be avoided if he was allowed to do a complete heal.

But at least the bleeding had mostly stopped, though it started up again when he sat up because there was not even spit and duct-tape holding the injuries together.

In fact, Castiel was not sure sitting up had been worth it, but it lessened his feeling of helplessness, despite the fact that he was in truth no better equipped to fight back or escape now than he'd been last time he was conscious. Sitting up just _felt_ better than lying down despite having no strategic benefit, something Castiel hadn't really understood before his Grace had been stolen. Something of being vulnerable in that peculiarly human fashion had left marks on him in more ways than one even though he had reclaimed his Grace, or what had been left of it anyway.

He could see from this new vantage point that the room had a door, but no windows, and -rather maddeningly- he could not use his senses to be sure of anything beyond the four walls, concrete floor or ceiling with its set of light fixtures because of some of the warding. The room was roughly the size of the main library in the Bunker, but unfurnished and without a single book anywhere, and the bare, slightly buzzing ceiling fixtures didn't lend the warmth of the table lamps in the library.

The best description of the room was boring, especially when viewed with senses little more exceptional than those of the average human, which was what the warding had reduced him to. The ability to be bored was a human thing, one which Castiel had unwillingly taken with him when he resumed his status as an Angel. He not only _understood_ boredom, but actually continued to _experience_ it from time to time, something he wasn't at all pleased about. He'd lost the enjoyment of food but kept the discomfort of boredom. It didn't seem right, but that was about par for the course. In any case, when one had made as many disastrous mistakes and died as many deaths as Castiel had, one took what they could get, even if what they could get was bored.

At least the woman had gone away. He didn't think she had any more useful information that she would simply impart without prompting, and -while internally he had maintained a good grasp on it- he was uncertain if language as humans would understand it would come out of him if he tried to talk. The unwonted interaction of warding and continued injury were combining to make some interesting -if undesirable- results, and he feared that he would talk in his true voice if he attempted speech, and -when aimed in the direction of humans- that mostly just resulted in ears bleeding, walls vibrating and every piece of glass in a thirty foot radius spontaneously shattering. No good.

It _did_ cross Castiel's mind to attempt some sort of... well, something to try and keep the blood presently escaping from doing that, or at least make sure that it didn't become as enthusiastic about that as it had been earlier, but Castiel's knowledge of First Aid could best be described as nonexistent. He knew more about firearms than tourniquets, and most of what he knew about the former was that he had a good chance of knocking a person unconscious if he whacked them with one.

He tried to remember what Sam and Dean did when they were injured... but mostly he remembered that he healed them when they allowed it. Ice seemed to be good for physical trauma, but he couldn't remember if it did anything for a bleeding wound.

Not that he _had_ any ice. Not being able to heal properly was very inconvenient and was something he had not missed having to deal with as a mortal.

Just for the sake of thoroughness, Castiel tried pulling at the handcuffs, which served to make the wounds in his shoulder and chest extremely irate, and he succeeded only in renewing the blood flow in his first bullet wound, which was not the desired outcome. So he stopped struggling for the moment, and resigned himself to the reality that he would simply have to wait for something to happen.

* * *

Dean had found Sam in the library.

Sam had told himself that he was just idly surfing the internet, but the reality was that a Hunter never idly surfed anything, and he was actually on the trail of another potential job, despite having promised Dean that he wouldn't look for another job until _after_ Christmas, something which he understood was of critical importance to his brother for the usual reasons.

Family was central to Dean's every motivation. He had always wanted hearth and home, and now he had an approximation of it, he was desperate to wring everything out of it that he could before the rug was inevitably yanked out from under him (again). For the time being, Dean was ignoring their strained relationship with their mother, the imminent threat posed by the as yet unborn Nephilim, the unknown potential threat posed by the British Men of Letters and literally anything else that might conspire to spoil this particular holiday event, which Dean had carefully planned and into which he had dragged each member of his little family, whether they were willing or not.

Sam was annoyed with Dean, and he didn't feel the same way his brother did, but they'd already had this fight once before when Dean was scheduled to take what they believed at the time would be a one-way trip to Hell. It wasn't an argument worth rehashing, even though there would have been a lot of new material for it; not the least of which was that their mother was no longer dead, but was not comfortable being together with them as part of the family.

However, when Sam looked up from his laptop screen, he noticed almost immediately that his brother was almost beside himself with overt distress; distress he was clearly trying to pretend wasn't there, and was obviously hoping no one would notice. Politely, Sam decided to pretend to be blind to it.

After all, Dean was certainly a far cry from the most distressed he'd ever looked, though the rumpled state of his clothes said he'd been too exhausted last night to bother changing and had probably fallen into bed with his boots on. Given that Christmas was almost upon them, Dean had to be nearly crazy with worry that something was going to happen and ruin it, so it was pretty likely that his distress was entirely self-generated. Dean didn't cope very well with emotions, least of all anxiety.

With atrociously transparently feigned nonchalance, Dean sat at the table across from Sam and sipped the mug of coffee he'd brought with him. He did not say a word for a number of seconds. Sam counted those seconds, just to give himself a feel for how agitated his brother was, and how easy it would be to send him into conniptions once he initiated a dialogue.

"So, what're you reading?" Dean asked, after a number of seconds had passed that indicated he might just send _himself_ into conniptions if nobody acted to intervene.

Usually, this would have been Sam's cue that Dean was about to be very annoyed with him for looking for a job when he'd explicitly promised _not_ to do that, but Dean's tone was not one of accusation. That meant whatever was bothering Dean had so taken over his mental processes that it did not even occur to him to notice that Sam was guiltily wearing the Looking For A Job face while he surfed the 'net.

"A news report from Milwaukee," Sam answered cautiously, "Thought there might be somethin' there, but it looks like a perfectly normal grave robber."

Dean didn't even blink at Sam's blatant admission that he was job hunting. A bad sign.

"Do you think we need to add a gravy boat to our dish set?" Dean asked.

Okay. So Dean definitely wasn't worried about Sam looking for a job. And he didn't want to talk about what was actually bothering him. But why the Hell was he asking about a gravy boat?

Sam stared at his brother, and realized that it was because Dean expected the question to get precisely this reaction from him. Dean wanted Sam to demand to know what they needed a gravy boat for, and why Dean of all people would bring it up. He wanted to do that so Sam wouldn't ask him what was bothering him. But he had come in here specifically because something was bothering him, which meant that he _did_ want Sam to ask about it. Typical.

"You know, Dean," Sam said, shutting his laptop and leaning back in his chair with a sigh, "You could come in here, tell me you're upset and then we could talk about it like normal people."

"What makes you think I'm upset?" Dean asked too quickly, "What have I got to be upset about?"

"_Dean_," Sam said, and he let both his expression and tone of voice answer the question.

"I just..." Dean began, then cut himself off, started over, "It's just... things are going too well. We're gettin' along with Mom again... things are quiet out there, quieter than they've ever been near any major holiday... everyone's agreed to spend Christmas here at the Bunker... it's not-... I don't-... Nothin' _ever_ goes this smooth. Not for us. Not once in our entire lives."

Sam took a breath and said, "You're paranoid."

"That don't mean I'm wrong," Dean fired back without hesitation.

He was right, of course. Most of the time, someone or something _was_ conspiring to bring an end to the Winchester line. If there came a day when nobody was out to get them, Sam would have to wonder if it was a vivid hallucination or the most profoundly alternate reality he'd ever been in. Even in death, whether they went to Heaven or Hell, there was always somebody still after them, still wanting something more from them, still wanting to hurt or destroy them.

"I think this is the first Christmas you've had Mom in over thirty years and you're freaking out," Sam told his brother in a tone of utterly forced calm, "I know I am. This is my first Christmas with Mom _ever_. I'm not sure the term 'terrified' even begins to cover what I'm feeling right now."

Dean frowned, looking dubious, "I'm not freaking out about that," he paused, "Much," then he shook his head fiercely, "No, it's not that. It's not. It's somethin' else," Dean sighed heavily, then concluded, "Something's wrong, Sammy... an' I don't know what it is."

"Since when are _you_ psychic?" Sam inquired.

"I'm _not_," Dean snapped, then calmed down and continued, "I just... somethin' don't feel right. I can't put my finger on it… but," he sighed, "I can't ignore it either."

Sam didn't much like what he was hearing. On the one hand, his brother had never been gifted with precognition. On the other, when had Dean's instinct for incoming trouble ever lied to him? It was true that Sam and Dean were often blindsided by disaster they had not seen coming, but when they actively _expected_ trouble? That shoe had _never_ failed to drop. Not once.

"So... you want to go looking for it?" Sam asked curiously.

"Puttin' a paper bag over your head when the world's ending never seems to work out very well," Dean told him, then sighed again, "But I don't even know where we start."

"So... you want to just wait?"

"Hell no!" Dean practically shouted, then added more softly, "I just don't know what else we can do."

It was evident that Dean now felt embarrassed about the whole conversation, and even being upset in the first place. The more he talked to Sam, the more he looked convinced that he was just getting worked up over nothing. As his embarrassment mounted, he became half wild with trying to both excuse himself as reasonable while at the same time making light of his feelings.

Sam opted not to pressure him on it. They'd had enough arguments in the last few days over the number of jobs Sam had driven them to take in order to avoid thinking about the inevitable. Christmas was coming, Sam's first with his mother alive, and he had no idea -mentally or emotionally- how to handle it. And he had even less of a clue what to get his mother as a gift. The last thing either of them needed now was another fight between themselves over nothing.

Though he had spent more nights than he would ever admit dreaming of it, Sam really wasn't sure how this whole having a mother thing actually worked, and he was afraid every second in his mother's presence that he would say or do something to ruin it. They'd already gone through one rough patch, and it had felt like the bottom fell out of the world.

But Dean had gotten over it, and their mother was sort of warming up to them a little, and Sam felt they all had another chance at being a family. Just so long as he didn't do anything to screw it up. He knew so little about mothers -and _his_ mother in particular- that he wasn't at all sure what to do around her, and he was frankly paralyzed with dread of getting her a Christmas gift she hated.

It was irrational, and he knew it, but he couldn't help it. The closer they got to Christmas, the more terrified he became of it, and the more he tried to drown himself in jobs so he wouldn't have to think about it. It was the Winchester way after all, their only coping mechanism for emotional stress was work. Sam knew, in his saner moments, how incredibly flawed that was, saw that it was always doomed to backfire spectacularly... yet he always fell into the same trap, just like his brother did.

After a suitable amount of awkward silence had filled the room, Sam cautiously ventured, "Do you think Mom would like a gravy boat?"

* * *

The Demon called while Harrow was trying to get a folding table through the narrow, L-shaped hallway. The house had obviously been repeatedly modified and added on to, but most of those changes had been more or less for the better. But whoever was responsible for this atrocious bit of home renovation definitely deserved a special room in the very real pit of Hell, because it was nothing but a damned nuisance to anyone having to traverse it carrying anything larger than a coffee cup.

Sandwiching the table between the wall and her hip so it couldn't slide away, Harrow pulled out her phone before it really got started on its ring-tone melody. In a fit of morbid holiday humor, she'd made _You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch_ the tune for when The Demon was calling. Though _Bad Company_ might have been more apropos, it would also have been less festive. She had briefly considered _Santa's Gonna Kick Your Ass_, but decided that would just be spiteful.

"This place is filthy," Harrow opened the conversation by way of complaint, "I realize you've been a denizen of Hell for a couple hundred years or something, but is that any excuse not to clean up your messes? The kitchen is especially disgusting, and I have to walk by that every time I come and go."

"_Do you have it?"_ The Demon asked, ignoring her as usual.

Harrow sighed, dared to roll her eyes because she knew it couldn't see her, "Yeah. And, let me tell you, it was a handful. You said one of those bullets would do it, but the thing took about half a dozen before it finally went down. Split my lip too."

Annoyed by the disrespect in her tone, The Demon warned, _"This plan of yours had better work. If it doesn't, you know what I'll do to you."_

"Yeah, yeah," Harrow muttered dismissively, "Pain and suffering and death and eternal damnation. We both know I'm more valuable to you alive. It's not like you have a ton of friends these days."

"_Be careful, Whore,"_ The Demon growled, _"My patience is finite."_

It was Harrow's turn to bristle. The Demon liked calling her names, and it knew that was one she particularly detested. It was bad enough that the name was derogatory, but the fact that it wasn't even applicable somehow made her more angry still. It indicated promiscuity, when in fact she had been very discriminate about what Demon she accepted as partner in her endeavors.

Specifically, she had chosen a Demon she felt sure she could outwit, should it become necessary, and one who did not have the full force of Hell behind it. In truth, The Demon would be just as screwed as Harrow if this little venture didn't pan out, if not more so. Anyway, The Demon shouldn't have been one to talk about whores, seeing as it had sold its soul to Hell back when it was still human.

But now was no time to be needling it further, because as luck would have it, Harrow needed something from her not-so-silent partner, and if she started arguing with it about name calling, it might refuse her, or at least go off to sulk for a week or so. And she didn't have time for that.

"You'd better get your ass over here and lend some of that wonderful demonic energy of yours," Harrow said, "I already had to erase some of the warding, and might need to erase more before all is said and done. And I'd rather do that with a Demon on hand in case the Seraph's not as weak as it looks. But, assuming it _is_ as weak as it looks, it may expire before we want it to if I don't erase more sigils, or at least modify them a little."

"_You should not have erased __**any**__ of the warding without consulting me,"_ The Demon snarled angrily, _"Or do you want that Seraph to escape and burn your eyes out of your skull as it smites you?"_

"I may be new at this, but I'm not _stupid_," Harrow said impatiently, "I've listened to your tedious lectures, and I've done the research. I know what I'm doing."

"_That,"_ The Demon snarled, _"Is __**exactly**__ what stupid people say."_

Then it hung up.

"Cutting me off isn't the same as having the last word, you son-of-a-bitch," Harrow snapped.

Then, shouldering the burden of the folding table once more, she continued down the corridor, softly singing _We Wish You Weren't Living With Us_ to herself.


	5. Written by Hand

_Now I ain't sayin' that the bible was wrong/  
But ya see the whole tale/Would have taken too long.  
_**-Three Kings and I ****_(Trans-Siberian Orchestra)_**

* * *

Realizing that she was being rather antisocial by hiding away in her room, Mary decided to venture forth and see what her boys were doing. It was hard, being close to them, knowing that she was responsible for the (sometimes literal) Hell they'd been put through, knowing she couldn't do anything to undo that damage, knowing she didn't know her boys at all but was obligated to love them anyhow, even as she mourned her children as if they had died, because that was how it sometimes felt to her.

But she'd agreed to spend the holiday season in the Bunker, and that had indirectly been a promise to make an attempt -however feeble- at being a proper, normal family, if only for a little while; something that didn't feel right without the husband who had died in her absence, and with two strange men -Hunters- who bore the names of the children she had never gotten a chance to know.

She found the boys in the library, though neither of them was reading a book. Sam had his computer open, as he always seemed to, though she wasn't sure why. She understood that the boys got a lot of use out of their computers and the internet, and could avoid an amazing amount of the legwork that used to be an integral part of Hunting, but it seemed that the fascination (particularly Sam's) with the computer was deeper than that, perhaps bordering on unhealthy obsession.

Dean was doing something which made more sense to her, though it didn't seem to be in keeping with the holiday spirit. He had taken out his preferred handgun (which was half of a matched pair, the other of which belonged to Sam), disassembled it on the table and was now proceeding to clean each of its individual parts, which all seemed to be thoroughly gleaming already. If Mary had been cleaning a gun that sparkling, it would have signaled she was worried about something and trying not to show it. But she did not know if the same was true of Dean. The not knowing nagged at her.

"Hi, Mom," Sam greeted her without looking up from his computer screen.

"Hey," Dean grunted, also not looking up from his task.

Getting the impression that the boys were engaged in a sort of social time that called for no direct interaction, Mary breathed an inward sigh of relief. She smiled at the boys and went to one of the bookshelves, selected a book and sat in one of the reading chairs, so that she was present but not actually _at_ the table with the boys, which somehow seemed like more intimacy than she was ready for.

She pretended to read, but actually surreptitiously looked over the top of her book at the boys, watching everything they did, drinking in every sigh and tic and facial expression, committing them to memory, absorbing every subtle detail of her boys, wishing it could make up for having missed watching them grow up, not getting to see when and how all their little trivial habits had begun to develop.

Sam had a habit of forgetting to breathe when he got engrossed in reading, and so would periodically sigh loudly as his lungs reminded him of the importance of oxygen. Dean scowled at the disassembled components of his gun as if they offended him, and wielded the cleaning brush in particular as if it were the weapon, and any invisible grit or grime on his gun was some kind of monster.

Both of them had empty coffee cups beside them, though each repeatedly picked up his cup, noticed it was empty and put it down again as if he'd forgotten finishing it. However, the longer Mary watched, the more she realized that going for the cup was practically automatic, part of the habitual rhythm of their separate tasks. The realization disturbed her, though she couldn't have explained exactly why that was, even to herself.

Belatedly, Mary took note of the book she'd picked up. It was one she'd started to read once before, though she'd never finished it. It was an elaborately prosy book that had been laborious to read, not to mention having been very poorly translated into English from its original language by someone whose handwriting was about as legible as a doctor's signature. It was also a monster of a tome, having more than five hundred pages despite being as tall as her forearm was long and the text being small and tightly printed (which served to make it all the more illegible). It was the sort of book sometimes described as being "impossibly thick" in every possible sense of the phrase.

The reason Mary had picked it up before was that it was about Angels, very specifically Seraphim.

Mary had initially been very much afraid of Angels mainly because she didn't know anything about them, how they operated or what sort of weaknesses (if any) they had. She had been still more afraid of them because of the obvious affection her boys harbored for one of their kind. Perhaps unfairly negatively judgmental towards everything supernatural, Mary had been at first concerned that perhaps some magic or spell was at work, that her boys were being manipulated into trusting the Angel without their knowledge or consent. It seemed silly now, and she had been ashamed to realize that part of her suspicion had not been based rationally at all.

She had been at first unable to accept the reality that _anyone_ could know Sam and Dean better than she did even though she was aware that it was impossible for her to really know the boys at all. She hadn't been around since Dean was four, and could not possibly know people she had not seen or spoken to since they were children over three decades ago. It just didn't make sense to even think otherwise.

But her emotions in those early nights after her resurrection when she couldn't sleep didn't care about logic or reason. They told her that these were _her_ sons, she was their _mother_, and therefore she _should_ know them best, and she should be suspicious of anyone who appeared to know them better.

In truth, she had lately realized that she'd also actually been jealous of Castiel's bond with her sons, the easy way he interacted with them, how in tune he was with their ways, when she herself found even getting through a brief conversation with one of them beyond daunting. So she'd started reading about Angels as a way to either confirm her worst fears or ease her mind.

During a conversation with Castiel in one of those early days (actually it had been the middle of the night, which was when she usually ran into the Angel floating around the Bunker like a lost spirit... though in fact it was she who felt lost), she had asked him about Lucifer, which had seemed relevant enough because Satan _had_ been loose in the world at the time.

Castiel had confirmed in response to Mary's query that Lucifer was an Angel, specifically an Archangel, and Mary had seen the opportunity to casually ask about types of Angel, in particular what type Castiel was. Without reservation, Castiel had told her that he was a Seraph, then gone on to give a few examples of other Angel classes, such as Cherubs (or Cupids, as humans were inclined to call them), Rit Zien, and Grigori. It did not seem to occur to him that Mary had taken more than casual interest in what _he_ was, or that she could potentially use the information to hurt him.

Castiel's apparent confidence had worried her, because it suggested to her that he was essentially invincible. Even though one of the British Men of Letters seemed to have hurt him, the damage had not been extensive or lasting, and she doubted that he had been in any real danger at that time. The first books she'd picked up hadn't done much to encourage her.

Mary had learned that Angels seldom came to Earth, that they had avoided making their presence known to humans. What little was written about them spoke mainly of their incredible powers, which included the ability to warp not only people's thoughts and memories, but even reality itself. Mary had by that point already gotten from Dean that Angels were capable of time travel, and that was how Dean had gone back to meet her and John, something she did not remember (apparently because an Angel had wiped her memory of the events). It was only later that she learned time travel was a feat Angels could no longer accomplish.

The more she read, the more her fears seemed justified, especially as it began to become apparent that the loving and gentle creatures humans thought of when they referred to angels were not at all like the fierce and powerful warrior Angels that truly were.

But in this ancient tome, Mary had found text devoted entirely to Seraphim, not just their capabilities but their characteristics, the uses that Heaven put them to, and -at last- their weaknesses. While there were few things that could hurt an Angel, such things as could harm them did incredible amounts of damage. Assaulted with the right sort of weapon or spell, Angels were astonishingly flimsy.

Angels also had certain unbreakable rules -rules even Archangels were bound by- such as the fact that they were required to gain the consent of a vessel before they could enter it; unlike Demons who simply took whatever body appealed to them. Powerful and dangerous as Angels were, the more Mary knew about them, the more at ease she felt. Like all supernatural creatures, they had codes of behavior, motivations, physical laws which bound them and limited their power.

And then Mary had found the chapter about Guardian Angels, and that had begun to truly ease her fears at last, for there seemed no limit to what an Angel assigned as Guardian would do to protect the one in their charge, and she realized that Castiel had extended that protection to include not just Dean but all of the Winchesters, which -according to this book anyway- was a task of such enormity as to be bordering on impossible. Guardian Angels didn't get assigned to just _anyone_, and the people they were assigned to usually _really_ needed Divine protection, thus Angels were generally only given one human to guard at a time. It had taken more than one night of reading for Mary to get even that much from the book however, and in that time she had also begun to get to know Castiel a little better, both directly and through what her boys had to say about him.

Even when Mary had first started her study of Angels, it was obvious to her that her interest in Castiel had been purely related to her boys. She had feared he might be hurting them, and had also envied him his closeness with them. Once she got over those things, her interest in him had waned... until she had finally been sharply awakened to the fact that Castiel was one of them, part of their incredibly peculiar little family, though he was not human and did not bear Winchester as part of his name.

It wasn't until then that it had finally crossed her mind that the reason Castiel had told her whatever she asked about Angels was not because he was invincible; it was because he place an enormous amount of trust in her, counted Mary as one under his protection, had faith that she would not use her knowledge to harm him, even though he had known she was afraid of him.

Mary hadn't gone back to her books about Angels after that, because she'd realized something important. Castiel _was_ an Angel, but she couldn't learn _who_ Castiel was from a mere book, any more than she could learn about Sam or Dean by studying human anatomy.

It was beyond unfair to Castiel to think otherwise.

Now she realized that she had opened the book to a chapter she hadn't read during her brief, almost frenzied study of Angels. Her brow furrowed as she tried to untangle the cursive words from each other, and then decipher the meaning within the verbiage. In some surprise, she realized that the chapter had to do with Angel's wings, in particular their feathers, which were apparently useful for a wide variety of exceptionally powerful spells. Of course, getting one's hands on an Angel feather when Angels seldom came to Earth and even more rarely revealed themselves to humans had been something of a feat at the time the book was written, as well as when it had been translated.

Mary could not even begin to guess what an extraordinary coincidence it was that she was now reading about Angel feathers at this very moment in time...

* * *

"You'll have to bear with me, the son-of-a-bitch that wrote this spell had _appalling_ handwriting," the woman informed him.

She had arrived a few minutes ago with a bag full of things Castiel had recognized as commonly used spell ingredients. These disturbed him more than anything else, in part because he hadn't previously realized the blond was a witch, but mostly because his experiences with spells aimed in his direction had been profoundly negative, and he was not keen on finding out what this one might do to him.

The woman had set up a folding table on which she had placed a bowl. She ran her finger along the paper she was reading from, then leaned down and rummaged in her bag for the items the spell called for. Castiel watched in grimly held silence.

"Now, I understand that this will be unpleasant," the woman continued, taking pinches of this and that and tossing them into the bowl, frowning at it, and rummaging in the bag for additional ingredients, "But there's really no point in keeping you here if you haven't got them, and it's not like I can just trust your word on it. I mean..." she paused and gave Castiel a significant look, "You _are_ an Angel after all."

Castiel had never considered being an Angel in and of itself as grounds for distrust before. Angels _could_ be untrustworthy (treacherous even), but dishonesty wasn't typically considered an inherent feature of their kind. At least, not that Castiel had heard.

She returned to studying the paper, and her brow furrowed, "Damn this handwriting. I can't tell if that's amaranth or echinacea. Oh well, I suppose a bit of both shouldn't hurt anything... much."

At this point, Castiel began to suspect that this woman wasn't a very _good_ witch. All things being equal, Castiel felt he would have preferred it if she were, since her proclaimed intention was not to do lethal harm to him. Spells could simply fail when performed badly or with improperly measured ingredients, but they could also have all sorts of nasty unintended side effects.

When she began the verbal portion of the spell, Castiel was further set on edge, for he recognized enough of it to realize that she wasn't a natural born witch, and that her spell was calling on demonic forces for aid. That wouldn't have worried Castiel a great deal even a few years ago, because Angels had always been more powerful than ordinary Demons by a significant margin, and there hadn't been much a witch using demonic forces as the source of her powers could do to an Angel.

But the gap between Angels and Demons had begun closing slowly since the Apocalypse, in part because Angels were losing their strength, but also because Demons were learning more ways of dealing with them. More significantly, however, Castiel recognized elements of the student witch at the heart of the spell, which told him she was mixing her witch types.

It made the possible outcomes much more varied and uncertain.

Then Castiel felt it. For a few beats, it was very faint, a sensation so slight it might have been imagined. A dark force had reached out towards his essence, insubstantial but diseased fingers tracing lines along the edges of his Grace. He shuddered involuntarily, recoiling at the unwonted (and unwanted) contact. For a moment, that seemed to be it. But then the woman finished speaking into the bowl, and looked over at Castiel with new interest, and he felt the spell reaching for him more decisively, securing its hold in him like hooks in flesh. No, not just in him, in his _wings_.

The claws of the spell were raking at and digging into his damaged wings, cruelly twisting them, making them extend beyond the degree they allowed in their broken state, forcibly drawing from him the energy to make their shadows manifest visually. Sharp agony tore through Castiel at the wrenching of his wings, which had never been designed to be touched, much less _pulled_.

Dimly, Castiel was aware that he had attempted to tip forward onto his face, but that the hold on his wings prevented it. He writhed in pain, vaguely aware he was screaming, but not knowing when he had started or if it was possible to stop. The bulbs overhead flickered, their light pulsing in sympathetic response to his pain, despite the warding that dulled his powers. Time ceased to have meaning, until Castiel gained the perception that there had never been a time outside of this room, never a time when he had not been screaming, never a time when there had been anything but sheer, unmitigated agony throughout his body.

It could have been five seconds, it could have been five centuries, it could have been five eternities, but finally the spell reached the end, and his wings were mercifully released.

Castiel stopped screaming, closed his eyes, collapsed to the concrete floor, reflexively curled his body around itself, drawing himself into as small a ball as possible, trembling with weakness and lingering pain and newly awakened dread.

The lights overhead stopped flickering, though one of the bulbs had exploded.

Castiel's wings ached and burned with after effects of the abuse, and he trembled. He didn't want to be shaking, didn't want to be whimpering, couldn't stop, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but let his spasms shudder their way through his vessel, let the pathetic keening escape from him, though it was less like an escaping sound and more like something being wrung out of him like water from a dish rag, right down to the way he felt twisted and squeezed on the inside, the pressure continuing to build intolerably even though the spell had released his wings.

Mildly, as if she had just remembered to add carrots to her grocery shopping list, the witch said, "Well at least it wasn't for nothing."

The four words echoed and reechoed through Castiel's mind as his consciousness at last fled from the trauma, terrible and fraught with meaning he was incapable of comprehending.

_It wasn't for nothing. It wasn't for nothing. It wasn't for nothing..._


	6. Do You Fear What I Fear?

_A beast, a beast, clutching you so tight/  
With a face as black as the night.  
__-_**Do You Fear What I Fear? **_**(H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society)**_

* * *

Dean went through a moment of near-panic that seemed to have no cause whatsoever. He had been quieting his case of nerves with gun maintenance, and it had been going pretty well, especially since Mom had shown up and sat down with a book. The family felt whole, peaceful, and Dean's short night's sleep had been making itself felt and he'd sort of been just drifting from one thing to the next, not unpleasantly almost half-asleep.

But then, for no cause he could determine, his breath had begun to run short, and he'd had the sense of an impending attack, a blow about to come from somewhere. It had been all he could do not to cry out and push back from the table, instead quietly putting down the handgun and the implement he'd been using to clean it, then placing his palms flat on the table, gazing intently into its surface as if he were preparing to read tea leaves; forcing himself to take deeper breaths, to calm the hell down and acknowledge that everything was fine, that there was no reason for alarm, and panic had never done anyone any good either and freakin' get hold of himself!

After a minute, Dean felt steadier, and looked up to see that neither Sam nor Mom had noticed his brief fit, both preoccupied with their respective activities and paying no heed what Dean was doing.

He sat back, surprised to find that he was sweaty and trembling as though he'd just run a marathon. His heart was thundering in his chest and he didn't know why, but it was slowing down even now. Still, he realized that something was definitely wrong, but it was something wrong with _him_.

The Hunter life was hard on people, who always had one eye open even as they slept, watching and waiting for the things lurking in the dark to come and get them. But Hunters weren't really afraid of those things, weren't afraid to go out into that same darkness and drag those things kicking and screaming into the light before planting a bullet between their eyes or chopping off their heads or whatever it took to make sure the damned things died and _stayed_ dead once they'd been killed.

The sort of fit he'd just had was common to people who _didn't_ know what was out there, who barred their windows against nameless threats, hid in their closets from what they did not know or understand. People who lived in fear of the dark itself because they did not truly know the horrors that lay within its protective embrace. Dean's fears all had names. They all had faces. And most of them had already shown up so frequently that they'd almost lost their power to frighten, as horror inevitably does when repeated too often. But _this_... he didn't know where it had come from. He didn't understand it. Didn't know what it was. And that scared the crap out of him, more than the initial panicky feeling had.

What he did know was that he needed something stronger than the empty coffee cup he kept trying to drink out of. He also knew that Sam would notice and immediately question a beer brought to the table before noon. He knew, and didn't care, because he was going to bring in something a _lot_ stronger than beer and drink that instead.

He didn't know what had come over him, but he knew he didn't like it. Not one damn bit.

* * *

"Well?" The Demon asked impatiently when it came in the front door, which it banged behind it with such force and frequency that the wood was starting to splinter from the abuse.

"It wasn't for nothing," Harrow said, repeating what she'd told the Angel.

"It better not have been," The Demon snapped.

Harrow knew its fury was not actually for her. Demons were damned things, angry all the time, looking for an excuse to rip the world apart. She tried not to take it personally, but sometimes the thing made her so mad she couldn't help it. Especially when it took up name calling.

She crossed her arms, "You want to go in and see for yourself?"

The Demon seemed to draw in on itself at the suggestion, its eyes flicking Hell-black for a moment at the mere thought as it growled, "This is quite close enough. The power of that _Divine_ sparrow of the _Lord_," it spoke 'Divine' and 'Lord' as though they were the vilest words imaginable, "tastes disgusting enough from here. Besides, Angels get all fired up when they see Demons, and pardon me if I don't trust the job you did altering the warding. I walk into that room and the thing may get pissed enough to gather itself back together and burn the whole room full of Angelic Light."

"No way," Harrow disagreed with a shake of her head, "That initial test level spell knocked it out. Angels should come with a 'fragile' label stuck on them somewhere. We'll have to be careful with the timing and execution of it at a higher level, or we may wind up burning the Angel out before it gives us anything worthwhile."

"There's always another Angel," The Demon muttered darkly.

"That's just the thing," Harrow remarked condescendingly, "There_ isn't _always another Angel. That's why we've gone to all this trouble, remember? No, if this Angel burns out before paying off because you were too paranoid and impatient to do this right, then it's _your_ job to replace it."

Glaring, The Demon took a menacing step closer to Harrow, but she held her ground without visibly flinching. She was pretty sure it could see her shaking inside. Even in spite of herself, she was still a little bit afraid of the thing. It was a Demon, after all. She'd be fool not to be at least a little scared.

"Perhaps there is not always another _Angel_," The Demon conceded in a low voice, "But there is always another _witch_. Tread carefully, Harrow. Never forget that _you_ can be replaced."

_So can you,_ Harrow thought, but was wise enough not to say aloud.

* * *

Consciousness came with the cautious reluctance of a trembling fawn; unsteady, uncertain, and inclined to bolt at the slightest unexpected movement. But, no matter how carefully it approached, pain followed shortly in its footsteps, seeking to overtake it and shake it apart like a devouring lion.

Analogy and metaphor had been of value to Castiel in recent years. They were a way of talking about how he felt without actually talking about it, which was useful as feelings were even now somewhat new to him. But, more importantly, metaphor and analogy were a means of conveying information that the listener was otherwise ill-equipped to understand. Castiel resorted to one or the other frequently when explaining celestial and cosmic matters to mortals, because it facilitated understanding, especially with regards to matters which no human being could ever hope to understand, and for which no language was sufficiently developed to express. It seemed not to work as well for explaining mortal matters to celestial beings, at least not when Castiel had tried it.

However, there was no analogy or metaphor that Castiel could think of now that would have been sufficient to describe the anguish of what that spell had put him through. There were no words he could think of that would even begin to describe it, or its brutal aftermath.

But at least recovery was faster than when Rowena had inflicted her infamous attack dog spell on him, and it did not come with an accompanying phobia of going outside. In fact, out was _exactly_ what Castiel wanted more than anything at the moment.

Wearily, Castiel managed to sit up again, despite the pain that caused, and the way it forced him to acknowledge his increasing exhaustion, as well as the fact that a side effect of the spell was that he had shivered so violently that his vessel had begun leaking its contents again, with greater enthusiasm than before. That was getting increasingly problematic to cope with. Additionally, his wings still seemed to pulse with a biting inner fire, which was a new sensation for him.

He didn't like it.

If he had been human, and if he'd had anything in his stomach, he was fairly certain that the latter would shortly have ceased to be the case. As it was, he just groaned and closed his eyes briefly, feeling the internal lurch of his vessel trying to shed its misery by physical means.

Castiel hoped that would _never_ happen to him again as long as he lived. He'd technically endured worse, such as being atomized by pissed off Archangels, but he didn't want _those_ things to happen to him again either, for much the same reason; the reason being that it was awful.

The witch was gone now, though Castiel remembered her last words before his consciousness had decided to vacate the premises. Words that sounded distressingly like a warning about things to come:

_It wasn't for nothing._

Neither had being blown to bits by Raphael, only to be put back together just long enough to throw a Molotov cocktail at Michael and get blown to bits a _second time_ – this time by Satan Himself, just for the sake of variety. _That_ hadn't been for nothing, but it sure hadn't felt good.

_It wasn't for nothing._

Somehow that implied that there would be worse to follow. Beginning with having been repeatedly shot, things getting worse had thus far had been the obvious pattern. Castiel wasn't eager to see what worse than that spell was going to look like. He wanted out, and he wanted out sooner rather than later.

In fact,_ right now_ would be ideal.

He was so preoccupied that he actually didn't notice when he physically got up and walked to the end of his chain, noticed only when pulling at the end of it threatened his balance so critically that he almost fell down. Castiel had known his wings were integral to his sense of up and down, but he hadn't known how easily that sense could be upset with a little tweaking.

Angel wings were not meant for tweaking, even a little.

_It wasn't for nothing._

Of course, they weren't wings in the sense humans usually meant. After all, very few things could use their wings to teleport from place to place with greater ease than they could climb stairs. And they _certainly_ couldn't use their wings to fly back and forth through time.

The strain on his wings was what had left Castiel's vessel coughing up blood on one occasion when he'd traveled through time after being cut off from Heaven. Angel wings weren't meant to be strained like that, and it had been very surprising to Castiel that he'd survived.

If whatever the witch had planned involved further assault on his wings, Castiel wanted no part of it.

Actually, even if what the witch had planned involved nothing more sinister than a game of Parcheesi, Castiel _still_ wanted no part of it, despite having developed a fondness for board games during his brief time as a cracked pot (a term he still didn't quite understand the meaning of). The Demon Meg had been surprisingly tolerant. He missed that, even now. Missed Meg, though he had not fully appreciated the profundity of that loss until after his Grace had been stolen.

Castiel had made his way to the opposite side of the room, this time semi-aware of it before coming again to the end of his chain. At the end of it, he tugged at the chain absently. Nearly fell over. Walked a circle at the extreme length of his chain. Got tired, which he didn't like the implications of.

He sat down again.

_It wasn't for nothing._

With a shiver, Castiel realized he was afraid.

* * *

Sam noticed when Dean went and got a drink, but he didn't comment until Dean had taken his second shot in as many seconds. His brother was probably sixty-eight percent alcohol by volume at the best of times, but two rapidly slammed shots before noon was cause for at least mild concern, especially since they had already mutually acknowledged several of the elephants in the room, and none of those animals seemed like they would be driving Dean's behavior.

"Practicing for New Year's?" Sam inquired with a raised eyebrow and meaningful look at the glass.

"Shut up," Dean snapped, and downed a third shot.

Genuine concern began to worm its way into Sam's thoughts. Dean's sour attitude combined with three shots _after_ having already talked about expecting something to go wrong qualified as bizarre behavior, even by the standards of Dean's coping mechanisms, which were work, booze and porn (usually in that order). His brother was obviously more rattled than Sam had initially thought.

But rattled by what? By the fact that _nothing_ was currently obviously disastrously wrong? That would be taking even Dean's (surprisingly healthy) paranoia too far.

Sam could feel Mom looking up from her book even though she was seated somewhere behind him, could tell she was worried about Dean but undoubtedly scared to speak to him. Normally, she seemed more comfortable with Dean than she was with Sam, which hurt a lot but was understandable; but she seemed to get skittish when Dean was in a mood. The fierce, angry Dean was not the Dean she knew, and she frequently regarded him during displays of temper in the same way one would watch a rabid wolf circling a campfire, an attitude she could hardly be blamed for.

Of course, she hadn't seen Dean with the Mark. She hadn't seen what he looked like when he was dangerously, irrationally, _furiously_ blood-thirsty. If you hadn't seen it, you couldn't imagine it, and Sam had never encouraged her to try. He and Dean both preferred not to mention the Mark if they could avoid it, or all the suffering it had put them through. In comparison to that, this little flash of irritability was nothing, and Sam didn't flinch, nor even bat an eye.

"That's not very holiday spirited of you," Sam remarked coolly.

He knew he'd said the right thing when Dean reached for the bottle he'd brought in, then set it back down without pouring anything into the glass. Slowing his brother's drinking was often the first step to figuring out what was bothering Dean, or at least keeping him conscious long enough to try.

"Want to talk about it?" Sam asked.

"There's nothin' to talk about," Dean replied curtly.

Sam waited, expecting Dean to sigh and elaborate. Instead, he did something completely unexpected. He changed the subject. That in itself wasn't so strange. The strange part was that he didn't seem to be aware of having changed the subject, wasn't purposely trying to distract Sam from his present line of inquiry. Actually, Sam got the bizarre sense that Dean was actually trying to tell him what was bothering him, only Dean himself didn't actually know what it was.

"Don't you think Cass should be here by now?" without pausing long enough for an answer, Dean answered himself, "He should be here," then he suddenly got up, adding, "I'm gonna call him."

Dean wandered off, presumably to look for his phone.

Remembering when Dean had called Cass the night before, and that Dean had said Cass was somewhere just outside of Austin, Sam did the mental arithmetic and came up with the obvious answer: there was no way Castiel had had time to drive all the way up to Lebanon in the time since Dean called him. Not unless he'd been driving like a complete maniac. Sam had ridden shotgun with Cass at the wheel before. The only ticket Cass was ever going to get would be one for driving _too slow._

"Um... no?" Sam called in answer to Dean's question, but his brother didn't hear him.

Mom had laid the book aside, "What's happening? What's wrong?"

Sam shrugged and shook his head with a passivity he did not feel, "I dunno. I think maybe all this Christmas stuff is beginning to drive Dean a little nuts. It's kind of a big deal to him."

"To _him_?" Mom repeated with a raised eyebrow.

"To _us_," Sam corrected himself, "It's a new thing for all of us. I think maybe Dean's just... not coping very well with his emotions," _As usual_, he did not add aloud.

"And... Castiel... he helps with that?" Mom asked in her usual, slightly hesitant way.

Sam sighed. That was a difficult question to answer. It was true that Cass served in the capacity of best friend to Dean, but what that meant was complex and often variable, and how they'd gotten where they were now would have required a flowchart to even _begin_ trying to explain.

Last time Dean had been profoundly emotionally disturbed, he'd beaten the crap out of Cass. Whether or not that had done anything to help Dean deal with his emotions wasn't entirely clear, but he _had_ refused to let Cass heal him for some time after that, seemingly as some kind of warped self-punishment. But what emotional state would he have been in after the Mark if Cass hadn't tried to talk him down, hadn't tried to stop him, hadn't ensured that Rowena and Crowley did their part to save him, hadn't paid the price that had been extracted from him? Sam didn't know the answers to those questions, wouldn't have hazarded a guess if his life had depended on it. Perhaps Mom's question wasn't just difficult to answer. Perhaps it was _impossible_.

"He's not answering," Dean said, returning to the library, "It's goin' straight to voice mail."

"He's probably driving," Sam pointed out.

He chose not to add that it wasn't actually all that unusual for Cass to fail to answer for a variety of reasons, one of which was losing track of his phone with what seemed surprising frequency until you realized Cass had existed since the dawn of time without any material items he needed to keep track of. The concept of needing a phone -much less actually having and keeping track of one- was incredibly foreign and new to the Angel.

"Yeah... yeah, maybe," Dean replied, but stared at his phone as though willing it to ring.

Something about his intensity disturbed Sam, and he felt the first prickle of true unease, the first _real_ feeling that maybe Dean was right, that he somehow _knew_ something was wrong. Sam did not dismiss the feeling, though it would have been an easy thing to do.

Instead, he thought of all the times Dean had remarked that Cass sounded odd, and it had turned out Cass was about to do something insane, or that he'd been brainwashed, or worse. All the times Dean had felt unsettled about not hearing from Cass, even though it was not unusual for the Angel to go radio silent for weeks at a time without warning, and then they'd found out he'd been a prisoner somewhere, usually being tortured. In the past, they'd almost never paid any attention to these feelings Dean had, never acted on them. But maybe it was time they should. Sam could not recall a single instance where Dean had felt unease about Cass that hadn't later proven to be fully warranted.

Maybe the bond between man and Guardian Angel ran deeper than they knew. Sam had always thought of Castiel's status as Dean's guardian as merely an assignment, a job he'd been given. But maybe there was more to it. Maybe there always had been and they just hadn't wanted to acknowledge it.

Or maybe Dean's case of nerves was contagious.


	7. You Don't Even Realize

_I'm with you here all the time/  
__I'll be dead by X-mas now anyway/  
Tell me, will you remember me?  
_-**Dead by X-Mas **_**(Hanoi Rocks)**_

* * *

It had not so much as crossed Castiel's mind that Dean, Sam or anyone else would be worrying about him. His sense of isolation from the rest of the world as imposed by the warding was severe. Additionally his normally infallible knowledge of time had not returned since the spell. For him, it was little different than how being suddenly and without warning rendered totally blind or deaf would be for a human. He had no mechanisms in place to cope with the loss of that sense, and thus he could not begin to guess if it had been hours or years since his conversation with Dean over the phone.

Even if he was overdue, Castiel could not fathom that Dean would come looking for him.

Until recently, there had been a pattern to his interactions with the Winchester brothers. A pattern that he had not expected to change, in part because it had not occurred to him that it _could_ change.

Castiel had always been expendable. As a Servant of Heaven, he'd been one of many, specifically one among the low-ranking on the ground, who knew little of what really went on in Heaven. When he'd switched sides during the Apocalypse, it had been with the clear knowledge that when all the chips were down, Sam and Dean would save each other, and Castiel would be left to save himself if he was able. It had never crossed his mind that anything else could -or should- be the case. It was best for the brothers that they looked out for each other, and that they did not take risks on his behalf. It was understood by all at that time that the Winchesters were what mattered.

That had remained true ever since.

But in the last year or so, something had upset the pattern. Something had shifted in both brothers, and suddenly they had begun to at times place Castiel's needs above their own. It terrified and humbled him, especially as it had happened more than once now.

It had also confused him.

This pathetic little world _needed_ the Winchesters, every last one of them. But what need had it of a flightless Angel who had lost his sense of purpose as well as his place in Heaven, who continually broke and brought to ruin everything he touched, who had stained himself eternally by willingly carrying Lucifer? Their lives for Castiel's was not a fair or sensible exchange. He could not -_could not_\- understand why they ever thought otherwise.

Yet despite the change of pattern and its as yet unknown implications, Castiel didn't think anyone would be looking for him now. Not because he thought about it and decided there was no one who would be willing, but because it didn't even occur to him to think about the possibility of rescue in the first place. He had other thoughts on his mind.

When Castiel had first acknowledged that he was afraid, he hadn't fully known why. Assuredly, being held here against his will was unsettling. Not knowing why he was here was equally disturbing. The spell had certainly been thoroughly unpleasant. But in Castiel's world, none of these things was unusual enough to engender such fear as he'd become aware of.

But in fairly short order, he'd developed a theory as to its source.

Rowena's curse had faded and then surged back with ever greater intensity. There had been times Castiel was clear-headed, understood what was happening, was able to suppress what the curse was doing to him to a degree. Other times... he was mindless, spinning inside, understanding nothing, in control of nothing. The way it had swept in and out like an unpredictable tide was the worst of it, and he believed it served as the root for his current fear, which was that somehow this spell would prove to have lasting, or reoccurring effects. He was afraid of the spell, afraid of what it had done to his wings, afraid the spell would hurt him again when he was least prepared.

It wasn't the thought of pain itself that scared him, despite how debilitating it had been, but of it coming back unexpectedly, becoming worse somehow, expanding into something more complex and terrible. Rowena's curse had also involved pain of course. In fact, the pain had come before anything else. The memory of that, and the Hell which had followed, was what caused his fear now, he was sure.

Castiel had thought he'd conquered that fear, buried it. That it could so easily be brought back to the surface made it all the worse, because it said he would never fully be rid of it. There would always be unseen triggers for it out there, and he would not recognize them for the terror they represented until it was too late, and he was plunged back into the thick mists of all-consuming, nameless dread.

Knowing where his fear came from did nothing to lessen it, in fact his alarm seemed only to build on itself. In a clear state of mind, he would have wondered if this was perhaps a natural side effect of the spell itself, and not the Angelic version of PTSD. But fear tends to make clear thinking difficult, even for Angels. Or perhaps _especially_ for Angels, to the majority of whom fear had been something of a stranger before the Apocalypse. Ordinarily, Angels were able to heal mental damage with almost as much ease as they repaired the physical, and they had been woefully unprepared for the playing field to change. The very concept of a phobia was outside the realm of experience for most of them.

Even though he'd been concerned about side effects of the spell, Castiel had been considering what essentially amounted to physical ones, not psychological. Even Rowena's spell had not so much affected his psychology so much as roughly shoved aside who he was in order to send his body on a killing spree. In a strange way, carrying Lucifer hadn't been that much different.

Truthfully, pain had also been part of the aforementioned pattern with the brothers.

Helping the Winchesters was more than dangerous, it was also painful at times. But it was also right, and had been worth it every time. From Raphael to Ramiel, Castiel had understood the simple truth that protecting the Winchesters was good, it was right, and it was something he was supposed to do. But it also just kept getting harder, and there was seemingly no end to it. More than once, Castiel had broken under the pressure. Each time he did, he drowned in fear; fear which was ever increasing, because it brought with it the knowledge that someday he wouldn't be able to put himself back together, a fact he became more acutely aware of each year. Someday, perhaps very soon, he wouldn't have the strength left to get up and do it all again. And _that_ was what he was truly afraid of.

Something else which did not occur to him was that the combination of his distress, the unusual warding and the spell could lead to a completely unintended consequence for someone else...

* * *

Over the course of the morning and into the afternoon, Dean's agitation only worsened. He had agreed to keep cool until Cass was actually overdue, and not to keep calling the Angel over and over, but he couldn't stop feeling like some sort of doom was hanging overhead. His concern that something was wrong deepened into a certainty, and it became focused like a beacon on the thought that Cass was in some kind of trouble and needed his help.

He could feel Sam and Mom watching him, thinking that this was it, Dean had finally lost it. And who wouldn't, after all he'd been through? Unable to tolerate their worried and sympathetic looks, and especially unable to put up with the way they kept glancing at each other significantly without a word, Dean went out to the garage to wash the Impala.

Baby didn't need it, she'd barely picked up a handful of road dust on that last job, but Dean needed to be doing something. He needed to be physically acting, moving, even if he didn't know what it was that _actually_ needed doing. He'd never been good at waiting for signs – from above or otherwise.

However, instead of washing the car as he'd originally intended when he went to the garage, Dean shortly found himself opening her up, looking for dust, crumbs and anything else that might be on the floor or wedged between the seat cushions. Baby picked up all sorts of peculiar things on jobs, some of which Dean never did figure out where they'd come from. Somewhere around the Bunker was a three cent stamp from the 1950s that he'd found under the floor mats last year.

Just now, however, the interior was pretty clean. During their New Mexico job, Dean and Sam had been able to stay in a motel, and taken most of their meals outside the car, in the motel, or in the local diner. And they hadn't had any passengers either, which was where the weirdest stuff came from.

Even so, Dean _did_ find something that had slid under the backseat. If he'd been that kind of superstitious, Dean might've seen it as an omen, because what he'd pulled out was an Angel feather, undoubtedly one belonging to Cass, likely shed the last time he'd been in the car.

Angels didn't shed their feathers regularly that Dean had been able to determine, but neither he nor Sam ever noticed at the time the shedding was occurring, they just found the feathers later. Cass never mentioned losing his feathers, and Dean had never felt comfortable asking. It would be like asking a human about losing hair. Everyone did it, but nobody wanted to _talk_ about it. Besides, Dean had never been burdened with an overabundance of curiosity about the inner workings of Angels. He figured if it ever became important for him to know about angelic shedding, Cass would tell him.

Dean didn't know if Angels went through a shedding season like dogs and cats, but he did know that Cass had provided him and Sam and whoever might inherit the Bunker after the two of them were dead and gone with all the Angel feathers they could ever possibly want. During the Apocalypse, especially after the liquor store incident, Cass had dropped a lot of feathers. Since then, it had only been a feather here or there, which Dean always picked up and put somewhere safe when he found them.

At first, he hadn't really had a good reason for it. The Angel feathers were unspeakably gorgeous, and he could sense the power within just by touching them, but Dean hadn't known at first that they were sometimes used in spell-work. He just figured they shouldn't be left lying around. Once he'd learned a little about the kind of spells Angel feathers were used for, he'd been sure of it.

Dean knew some of Castiel's feathers _had_ to have gotten out into the world, and who knew what they were being used for, but at least fewer of them were out there than would otherwise be the case.

Since Cass undoubtedly knew something about those spells, it seemed odd that he was so utterly careless with his feathers, but he did not appear to even think about them, did not notice when he lost them any more than Dean was consciously aware of his hair growing, falling out, then growing some more. Anyway, Cass often found the physical world humans inhabited challenging, and worrying about every little lost feather was one problem he could definitely do without.

The feather Dean had just picked up was beautiful beyond description, which was pretty standard for Angel feathers, but was something he never got used to. He remembered the first time he'd found one. He hadn't been sure what it was. Though he understood that Cass' wings didn't manifest physically, and he essentially saw only a dim shadow of them, the feather didn't look at all like he would have expected based on that 'shadow', or the depictions of Angels he'd seen in art. It also had taken him a little while to accept that something which didn't manifest as a physical object as Dean understood it could nonetheless shed something which he could pick up and hold in his hand.

During some long drives, Dean and Sam had openly wondered how that worked. Why did Angel feathers become physical things when they were shed? Why had so many artists apparently reached an unspoken agreement of how to depict Angel feathers, when the real thing looked nothing like that? What caused Angels to shed copiously when normally they seldom lost more than a feather or two at a time? Was there some sort of wavelength of celestial intent time of molting? Did they lose feathers in Heaven too? The brothers had left the questions behind a long time ago, even though they had never gotten any satisfying answers by asking each other and bouncing theories back and forth.

By the time they got the Bunker, Dean at least had virtually given up the study of Angels; aside from a few brief research jaunts caused by Angel related jobs, Dean had subconsciously dismissed all his unanswered questions about them.

When he was being honest with himself, Dean knew it wasn't a lack of curiosity so much as the fact that he disliked thinking of Cass as being an Angel. This was partially because Dean didn't like Angels, and it was difficult to reconcile that his best friend in the world was also a member of a race of supernatural creatures Dean had rather profound disdain for. Though he kept the tactical advantage of having an Angel playing for his team ever in mind, Dean otherwise preferred to think of Cass as being just another person, albeit one who was perhaps a little bit addlepated.

With exaggerated and probably unnecessary care, Dean laid the feather on the hood of the Impala to remind him to take it back to the container in the Bunker where he and Sam collected them these days. Dean knew that he and Sam (or whoever came after them) might need one -or perhaps _every_ _one_\- of those feathers for something someday, but that was only part of the reason for keeping them.

The feathers could be destroyed with a bit of Holy Fire, but Dean didn't feel good about destroying the feathers (it was a waste of Holy Oil too). Even though they were no longer attached, replacements apparently grew into place, and Cass didn't so much as notice their absence, the shed feathers still felt distinctly like they were a part of Cass, and Sam and Dean had agreed that felt too much like they were destroying a piece of their friend the one time they had burned a feather just to see what would happen.

It didn't feel a bit the same as burning some hair for a spell, or even using blood for the same, something they'd done about a million times, sometimes even using Castiel's blood. Feathers were different somehow, and burning them for no reason seemed... well... wrong.

There were no other feathers in the Impala, though Dean realized at some point that he was looking for feathers more than he was cleaning the car. It disconcerted him, striking him as just a little bit mentally unstable. Before he'd finished a thorough inspection of the Impala's interior, he decided to abandon the pursuit to avoid thinking about the weirdness of his sudden obsession-like preoccupation with Cass.

Of course, when he got out and shut the Impala, he was faced once more with the feather itself. A slight gust from one of the vents stirred the feather a little, but was insufficient to push it off the hood. He had the irrational feeling that the object -though inanimate- was regarding him disapprovingly, as though recriminating him for cleaning his _car_ when he knew his _friend_ was in trouble.

"Shut up," he told the feather, snatching it off the hood and stalking out of the garage, mentally kicking himself for slipping so far that he was addressing feathers out loud.

He hadn't gone more than a few steps when the creeping spiders of dread started skittering down his back with a fevered intensity sufficient to halt him in his tracks. Without realizing it, he closed his hand around the feather he was carrying, clutching it tightly enough to crush it. The dread rapidly grew into the same panic-fear of before, stronger now, clearer.

Dean knew now beyond doubt that it had to do with Cass, though he could not fathom why or how, did not know if there was any justification for it or if he was actually just losing control of his faculties (it wouldn't be the first time).

It certainly _felt_ pretty damned real, and it _seemed_ to make sense. If Dean was going to start having panic attacks where he imagined someone in danger, he would assume it would be Sam or Mom.

Cass, important as he was to Dean, and as free as he was about throwing away his life for the sake of one or all of the Winchesters, was usually able to look out for himself. Dean didn't normally worry much about Cass. The Angel was older than Dean could begin to wrap his head around, and had survived all that time without his help. Worrying about the Angel felt silly, even when it obviously wasn't, and it had taken far too many years for Dean to get around that feeling of absurdity and realize that -Angel or not- Cass sometimes needed help quite desperately.

_This_ didn't feel silly.

Panicky without explanation, Dean couldn't force himself to take the deep breaths that might have steadied him, instead breathing fast and shallow, sucking air in and forcing it back out abruptly before his lungs had the opportunity to get acquainted with it. Shaky, not entirely aware of what he was doing, Dean stumbled back to the Impala and yanked open the front door on the passenger side, sitting down heavily before he got so dizzy that he fell down.

The panic attack (what else could he call it?) passed quickly, but felt like an eternity. When he came back to himself, Dean became intensely aware of the feather in his hand, and looked down at the fist holding it. Opening his hand, he looked at the feather, which had survived the mangling process without damage, looking as perfectly formed and soft and magical as it had before Dean had crushed it.

Looking at that feather, Dean became more certain than ever that something was happening to Cass. Something _bad_. And somehow -he didn't know how- it had something to do with the feather sitting so lightly on his palm. As if to deny what he now knew but didn't understand _how_ he knew, Dean quickly put the feather on the dash and sat back. Tried to avoid looking at it. Realized that was as bad as staring at it. Found himself staring at the feather, as if willing it to give him answers.

Of course, it didn't. It was just a feather and -however remarkable its origin was- it was not animate. By itself, it could not and would not provide answers. It would just sit there, shimmering under the garage lights, being unbelievably beautiful... but also completely useless.

Though he had promised he wouldn't until Cass was overdue, Dean got out his phone and called. After an interminable amount of ringing, Dean got Cass' voice mail. He'd decided that if he was wrong, he was wrong, and he'd live with the fact that he was on the road to crazy-town and someone had cut the break line. But if he was right, and he didn't do something _now_, he'd never be able to live with himself.

It was time to get a GPS lock on Cass' phone, and find out where he was.


	8. So Say a Prayer

_For those we've lost along the way/  
They may be gone but they still remain/  
In our hearts, in our name.  
_-**We All Need Christmas **_**(Def Leppard)**_

* * *

"Dean. Dean, where are you going? Dean, _stop_!" despite what he said or did, Sam couldn't get one bit of his brother's attention until he actually physically got up and barred Dean's way.

After pacing like a caged tiger for awhile, Dean had gone off to the garage to soothe his nerves by working on the Impala, but he'd come back looking half-wild and carrying an Angel feather, which he gripped with so much intensity it might've been a life line in the midst of a stormy sea. He'd gone off to his room, returned a few minutes later with a jacket and a handgun, and headed towards the garage.

Dean stopped only when Sam got in his way, though for a moment he didn't answer the question, instead merely glaring at Sam in stony silence. But Sam could read his brother like a book, and he knew that it wasn't anger that burned in Dean's eyes. It was fear, and it was contagious. Sam felt it reach him as Dean finally deigned to answer his earlier question.

"Cass is in trouble, Sammy," Dean said, though it sounded more like a question than a statement to Sam's ears, "I don't know how I know, but I just do. I _know_." That sounded like a statement.

Dean wasn't big on sensing things. He'd never been fond of psychic phenomenon, least of all when it had been Sam doing the sensing and Dean would ruthlessly ignore any instinct of his own that seemed to be bordering on unnatural. The fact that he had a feeling he couldn't explain or ignore had to be driving him crazy. But he was still accepting and acting on it, and that was worrying to Sam for a number of reasons, though he couldn't decide if it was because he was concerned for his brother's sanity or because he shared his brother's fear.

Seeing little point in arguing in either case, Sam instead demanded, "Okay, but where are you going?"

"To find him," Dean answered sensibly, "Startin' with his phone."

"And where's that?" Sam asked, just a little annoyed that his brother had broken his agreement to wait until Cass was overdue before pinging his phone's location, but mostly doubling up on the worry.

"According to his phone's GPS?" Dean replied coolly, "I-35, handful of miles north of Austin. Even money says that's exactly where he was when I called him last night."

Sam was about to respond, when he saw that Mom had entered the room now, slipping her arms into her coat, then tucking the book she'd been reading under one arm, saying when he caught her eye, "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go."

Dean looked at their mother with an expression of immeasurable relief.

With Mom backing Dean up, and with the evidence of the location of Cass' phone now before him, Sam couldn't think of any real reason to object except flat denial of the now increasingly obvious. There _was_ something wrong, and somehow Dean knew about it, even though he couldn't explain how.

Internally, however, Sam wondered what the chances were that Cass was both alive and with his phone in the exact same spot as he'd been in last night. Denying the possibility that the Angel had been killed, Sam instead thought that the phone would be unlikely to provide any answers about what had happened to him or where he was now. But it was the only clue they had right now, and Dean didn't look to be in a 'Wait and Look for Signs of Supernatural Activity Online' sort of mood. If Sam didn't agree to go, Dean would just drive off without him, and one look at his brother was confirmation that Dean was in no condition to do that.

"Okay," was all Sam said aloud, "But I'm driving. You didn't sleep last night." He decided not to add that his brother looked about as wild-eyed as the aforementioned jungle cat and that alone would have disqualified him as a driver even if he'd been asleep for the last week.

Grumbling, Dean nonetheless submitted to the compromise.

Sam noticed that he was still carrying the feather. Dean didn't seem to be aware of it.

* * *

Reading the book gave Mary an excuse not to talk to her boys, something to do besides strain to feign normalcy and inevitably wind up falling into silences that were awkward for everybody.

Because Sam was driving, the usual selection of music was out. Dean complained to Sam almost the whole time, and Sam gave as good as he got, though it was obvious that neither of them were actually invested in the music argument. What they were actually committed to was avoiding talking about the subject neither wanted to address, which had more to do with the feather in Dean's hand than either of them were willing to admit. They avoided talking about their reason for this cross-country drive in the middle of the holiday rush. They avoided talking about Castiel. They avoided talking about any Angels at all. They avoided talking about Dean's panicky certainty that Castiel was in trouble. They avoided talking about _anything_ except their different tastes in music.

Mary stayed mostly silent, pretending to be engrossed in the book. They made no attempt to lure her into their argument, seeming almost to have forgotten she was in the back seat at all. She supposed they were probably used to riding just the two of them in the Impala, killing time on long road trips by harassing each other after the manner of most brothers.

Watching them now, it was easy to forget who and what they'd become in her absence, all she knew and suspected that they'd been through. The guns were out of sight, so it was just them, just the rattle of the heater, just the road unrolling ahead of them. It was easy to imagine they were on their way to visit the grandparents for the holidays with gifts packed into the trunk just like any other hundred drivers out today. Only for them there were no grandparents, and the only gifts in the trunk were Devil's Trap bullets, a Demon knife, some machetes and a couple of Angel Blades.

It was a daunting eleven hour drive from Lebanon to Austin even at the best of times. Given the holiday traffic, there was no way they could hope to reach their destination in a single day. Even if that were possible, whatever ill had befallen the Angel had occurred already, sometime last night. They all knew -though not one of them dared say it- that Castiel might well be dead before they ever reached the spot from which he'd last been heard.

The fact remained that Castiel was family, so they had to try. He would do the same for them. _Had_ done the same and more. In every way possible, he had demonstrated that there was nothing he would not do for the sake of the Winchesters, even Mary, who he knew feared and distrusted him. She had successfully hidden that from her boys, but the Angel had seen right through her.

Castiel had never once questioned her on it, nor seemed offended or even particularly surprised. His greatest act of kindness as far as Mary was concerned was that he took note of her fear, accepted it quietly, and did not bring it up in front of Sam or Dean.

As far as Castiel knew, she still viewed him fearfully and without trust, as though he were an imposter, an unwanted invader in the lives of her sons. After all, she had never told him otherwise, and she now understood he had never read her mind, that he never would without good reason. So if she didn't tell him, how was he to know?

He had known she feared him because she kept distance from him, and flinched from his touch. He seldom approached her anymore, and never tried to touch her unless she was injured and then only to heal, though even those attempts had become infrequent and were preceded by requests for permission to do so. She had shut down his every friendly overture, and refused to ever grant permission even to so much as heal an injury, and Castiel had accepted that with remarkable passivity.

Though he deserved better, and had certainly earned it in blood, Mary had not even done Castiel the courtesy of thanking him for taking care of her boys all the years when it should have been her. The closest she'd come was expressing her gratitude to him for pulling Dean out of Hell, though she knew he had done so much more than that in the years that followed. She had not even summoned the courage to tell him the truth about her involvement with the British Men of Letters; involvement that had almost gotten him killed.

Castiel had twice -that she knew of- risked his life for her, his recompense the first time had been Dean's ire, the second had been the point of Micheal's Lance and a lie made believable to him because Dean had unknowingly told it to him. And Mary had just stood back, done nothing, and let both of those things happen without saying a word.

Mary had been so focused on her boys, what she needed to do for them, what she _could_ do, that she didn't even have the time for a thank you or an apology to the Guardian Angel who had done so much for them already. A part of her kept thinking _After. After this, after things calm down, after it's over._

But what if the Angel wasn't alive for _after_? What then?

* * *

No one was more disturbed about Dean's sudden change of behavior than Dean himself. He remembered well the way Sam had once had visions, remembered too well the cause behind it, remembered in painful detail all the bad that had come out of it. But Dean wasn't psychic. He never had been. The closest he'd come to being psychic had just been Angels messing with him, taking him to visit the possible future, the actual past, a handful of alternate realities, and appearing to him in dreams.

From that perspective, the fact that all this seemed centered on Cass made a crazy kind of sense. But it also _didn't_ make sense, because of how long-distance communion with Angels worked.

If Dean prayed, especially if he called the Angel by name, they would hear him, no matter where they were. But they could not respond directly, as they could respond to each other over Angel radio. In fact, Dean had never received any feedback to indicate Cass heard him unless the Angel had suddenly materialized in front of him (or more usually behind him), something Cass could no longer do. And of course Cass couldn't pinpoint Dean without being told where he was, not since he'd carved the sigils into the brothers' ribs to protect them from other Angels. The only way Cass had of responding to Dean over a distance was appearing to him in dreams. It had been a long time since Dean had prayed, and still longer since Cass had showed up in his dreams. For both of them, phones had become preferable.

Dean didn't like Angels wandering around in his dreams, and Cass had once explained that he could not shut out prayer the way he could turn off Angel Radio. So whenever anybody prayed to him, he heard it, and it was frequently distracting and annoying; potentially dangerously so, depending on what he was doing at the time. Dean had seen the effect particularly urgent messages on Angel Radio seemed to have on Cass, and he imagined prayer must be kind of like that.

All of that taken into account, it didn't seem possible that Dean could be getting some kind of read off Cass. Though it was well understood by all that Cass was more closely bonded to him than to anyone else, and had been since before they'd been on remotely friendly terms with each other, that hardly seemed to factor into it. Why now? Why not any of the times before when he'd been in desperate need of help? What was different about now? That question, more than any, scared Dean, though he suspected that some of that fear -a lot of that fear- was not his own. That was more terrible than all of the questions.

Even though no one felt hungry, the long-standing habits of the Hunter drove them to stop and eat lunch. Dean didn't feel like talking, and he could see Sam didn't really either, so they avoided it by way of Sam looking for signs of the supernatural in the area they were heading towards on his laptop while Dean did his best to keep his mouth full with his burger and fries at all times after their food arrived.

Both of the brothers were preoccupied by thoughts of how far they'd come and everything they'd been through, wondering uneasily if what they now faced would be something short-lived and easily dealt with, or if it would be some kind of ongoing trial.

How dark would things get before they reached the end of the tunnel?

It never went well when supernatural forces started altering Dean's mental and emotional state. If they didn't turn him demonic and send him off on a murder spree, they left him vulnerable to creatures like banshees. On the major scale there had been the Darkness and the Mark, but even on a minor scale there were sirens and djinn and so on. Not to mention the effects supernatural forces had had on Sammy. Supernaturally caused mood swings were never a good thing. One way or another, it always ended bloody. Sam and Dean knew it, and they were as worried about that as they were about Cass.

After all, what if it wasn't Cass proverbially sending out flares? Since he never had before, it seemed reasonable to consider the possibility that he was not doing so now either.

But if it wasn't Cass, then who or what was it? And what would that eventually mean? Last time either of them had been getting Angelic mental pings, it had been Lucifer messing with Sam, which hadn't gone well at all, and the fact that there was a pregnant lady running around the countryside with the literal spawn of Satan said the fallout on that wasn't dealt with yet.

Inevitably, in the silence, Dean found himself thinking of that night in the barn, when Castiel had been on the verge of death. Dean had called Cass family on several occasions, often right before everything went to hell in a hand-basket, but that night in the barn had been the first time that Cass had said aloud, in as many words, that he shared the sentiment. At the same time, he had clearly not understood it. He considered the Winchesters his family, yet had clearly been not just surprised but utterly _baffled_ by the fact that they would not leave him behind. He thought he was expendable in their eyes. He apparently had not considered -couldn't even believe- that they were willing to fight and risk death for him, just as he had done for them dozens of times.

It had been like a splash of ice water in the face for Dean, because it had informed him how terribly, coldly isolated Cass was. Hated -and not infrequently hunted and tortured- by his own kind, who would probably never let him return home, unable to interact successfully with "normal" humans for more than brief moments, Cass had only the Winchesters, whom he apparently believed just called him when they needed something and were happy to throw him to the wolves as soon as it was to their advantage.

Dean had realized that he'd done more than his share to contribute to that perception.

When Cass had brushed aside the slight of having been left to the mercy of a world that had already starved, tortured and killed him during his time as a human because Dean had been trying to protect Sam, Dean had thought it was understanding and forgiveness that had governed the behavior.

Now he understood that it was because Cass had _expected_ to be abandoned the moment he became an inconvenience. And, in that crazy, mixed-up Angel brain of his, he thought that was not only acceptable, but normal and even _right_. Cass expected to have to look out for himself, because no one else would, even as he gave all that he had -including his life- to serve the needs of the Winchesters.

_Always happy to bleed for the Winchesters_, he'd once said. Dean no longer believed it had been a joke.

Sam sighed and snapped his laptop closed, "No sign of anything even remotely Angel-related in the vicinity of Austin, Texas. No Angels, and nothing that any Angel would have any problem handling."

"Not even Demon signs?" Mom asked in some surprise.

"I mean... maybe," Sam admitted, "But nothing significant, just really minor stuff that I wouldn't even have given a second look if I didn't think _something_ had gone down on that road last night."

Mom frowned thoughtfully, but Dean's thoughts were on a different track altogether and he mostly ignored the exchange. Knowing they had hours left in their drive, that they'd probably be forced to stay in a motel for the night, Dean realized that there was a way -purposely almost forgotten- that he might be able to find out where Cass was, and what was happening to him now.

He knew Cass would never reach out of his own volition, not since Dean had made it resoundingly clear how he felt about that kind of intimate contact and Cass had finally understood humans well enough to realize he genuinely meant it. Cass had enough respect for Dean's wishes that he wouldn't violate them. Not solely for his own benefit, anyway. Even besides that, Cass hated to bring his problems to the Winchesters, hated the idea of bothering them, of being a burden to them, or their potentially being endangered because of him.

Claiming he needed to use the bathroom, but really because he didn't want Sam or Mom to know, Dean retreated to the single-occupant stall in the back of the roadside diner, locked himself in, took a breath, and began to pray.

"Hey, Cass. I uh... I know I haven't prayed in awhile, but I'm hopin' maybe you still remember how to listen..." he faltered, then continued, "Look... I'm goin' a little crazy here. Something's happening, and I think it's got somethin' to do with you. We need to talk and, since you're not answerin' your phone and I didn't sleep last night... well it seems like maybe we could meet each other halfway," he felt foolish talking to the empty air around him, as he always had, but he also felt unsettled by the silence.

Though he knew that Cass could not actually respond to him directly, the silence still felt ominous.

"Cass, I got this feeling like you're in trouble, and... and I can't say that feelin' don't scare the hell outta me. So... you know... if you get this... if you can... gimme somethin' to work with, and let me help you," frustrated in spite of the fact that he knew that the silence would continue, knowing it was unfair but unable to stop himself, Dean spat, "Dammit, Cass! For _once_, just let me help you."

Unsurprisingly, the silence reigned.


	9. One Thing Could Kill Me

_I don't feel so wonderful on this cold winter night.  
_-**Christmas without You **_**(OneRepublic)**_

* * *

At the frayed outer edges of consciousness, Castiel heard a lot of loud, but somehow muffled voices. Shortly thereafter, he became aware of powerful emotions as something that was like prayer but not prayer seemed to crash against him. Angel Radio was on, loud and discordant and impossible to interpret because the warding thoroughly garbled whatever was being transmitted. He turned it off, wishing -not for the first time- that On wasn't the default setting.

That made things quieter, but he still felt assaulted by emotional currents. Maybe some of them were his own, and he simply didn't recognize them. He wasn't sure.

Castiel lay motionless on the floor, staring at the drain near where the ring bolt for his chain was attached, feeling enervated and sick in a way he had not since his borrowed Grace had threatened to burn him up from within. If the warding had been lifted in that exact moment, he would have been unable to take any advantage of it. The second spell had been worse than the first, though he was nearly certain it had in fact been the same spell, but cast with more power, as well as greater emphasis on the natural aspects of the witchcraft than the demonic.

She had again explained to him that it would be unpleasant, as if being warned ahead of time somehow lessened the agony and sense of violation. She had again spoken of supply and demand, customers and product, and how none of this would have been necessary if nobody had broken the Angel's wings, but it actually made even less sense to him this time because of the fear that had thickened with each word, as the understanding sunk in that this would be a heavily repeated process, and that she had no intention of letting him go, possibly ever.

It wasn't even torture in the sense he was used to, because she didn't ask him any questions, didn't seem to want any information out of him, didn't even seem to know or care what Angel she'd gotten hold of. Normally when people kidnapped and tortured him, they wanted information, or they wanted him to pay for something they blamed him for, or they wanted to break him and force him to do their bidding (usually specifically because he was the Guardian of the Winchesters). This didn't even have the demonic edge of doing it for the pleasure of inflicting pain. There seemed to be no reason to it at all. Somehow, the lack of reason made it that much worse.

Castiel was somewhat aware that his fear had spiked to an unnatural degree, escalated from a little to a lot in... well... a span of time he couldn't measure but which he nonetheless suspected was small.

It reminded him more than he would have preferred of the fear he'd experienced while under the control of Naomi, all out of proportion with the thing that had triggered it, suffocating in its vise-like grip. Of course, that had been a part of him struggling to remember what had been done to him, essentially driving him to panic because of what he couldn't recall. Not that what had been done wasn't awful, but the terror had diminished once he was able to remember it. This was different for a lot of reasons, not the least of which being that he remembered fully what had happened to him, knew there had to be something in this spell that was affecting him mentally as well as physically.

Of course, knowing Rowena's spell had been driving him mad with the urge for violence hadn't stopped it from taking over, so realizing that this spell -now worked twice- came with a side effect of fear didn't do much to dispel it.

In fact, the only thing that had any real impact on it was exhaustion.

Even an Angel couldn't hold to panic levels of fear for long. Pain and horror mingled to become a terrible inner darkness in which Castiel felt himself beginning to sink, but they inevitably canceled each other out once he was too worn out to respond to either of them, until all that remained was a wearied numbness and what could be loosely described as a sensation of queasiness.

During the second spell, Castiel's wings had been strained to that specific degree which caused him to spit blood, but it had stopped before he blacked out entirely. He almost wished he _had_ blacked out, as that would be preferable to the alternative with which he was faced. After lying without moving for awhile, he recovered enough energy to start feeling afraid again, and he trembled for awhile, which annoyed the damaged portions of his vessel and forced him to heal as much as he was able, which in turn exhausted him once more, and he lay still for uncounted time before he again gathered enough strength to be frightened, at which time the cycle began anew. Perhaps that was the point, just spinning around in an endless, hopeless circle of utter futility and unending misery.

But if it was the point, he couldn't figure out _why_.

The cycle had repeated several times when he became aware of the voice, of the surge of feelings that didn't belong to him yet bore a striking resemblance to his own emotional state, at which point he understood that what he'd been sensing beneath the garbled Angel Radio was the prelude to prayer.

_{I know I haven't prayed in awhile, but I'm hopin' maybe you still remember how to listen.}_

The warding had weakened him extensively, but it had covered only the possibility of another _Angel_ attempting to contact him. Angel Radio was dysfunctional (but kept turning on regardless every time he approached unconsciousness, which was rather annoying), but the ability to hear prayer was so deeply ingrained in Castiel's essence that he had occasionally wondered if it would continue to function as it always had even after he was dead.

Still, the sound of someone -anyone- praying to him had become so rare that Castiel actually twitched in surprise, all the more because of whose voice it was that now called out to him.

_{We need to talk and, since you're not answerin' your phone and I didn't sleep last night... well it seems like maybe we could meet each other halfway.}_

Dean knew of course that Castiel could not respond directly, could not acknowledge that he had heard. Castiel could do that with Angel Radio (when it was working, that is), but humans didn't function that way. He had once tried to explain to Sam and Dean why that was, but as it turned out they had been thoroughly uninterested in the why. It was enough for them to know that was how it was.

Castiel could now hear Dean as clearly as if he were in the room, but he could not let Dean know he had heard, could not ask what Dean needed, or where he was, and he _certainly_ couldn't meet Dean halfway to anywhere at the moment. He wondered if he was too tired, in too much pain or perhaps simply too afraid to understand what Dean was asking, or if the instruction genuinely didn't make any sense.

_{Cass, I got this feeling like you're in trouble, and... and I can't say it doesn't scare the hell outta me. So... you know... if you get this... if you can... gimme somethin' to work with.}_

Dean's hesitancy and what almost sounded like contrition scared Castiel more than anything. Dean didn't talk that way. Not to Castiel. Not ever. Even when he was reduced from commanding to cajoling all the way to begging, it didn't sound like _this_. Something was very wrong with Dean, Castiel could feel it in the emotional currents on which the prayer had come, hear it in every faltering word.

Even had that not been the case, Dean _never_ prayed anymore. During his time as a human, Castiel had come to understand that the mortal end of the process was unspeakably frustrating, because it was impossible to know if anyone was even out there to hear you. There was no feedback, no indication that anyone was hearing you, or even _could_ hear you, no nothing. No wonder Dean had always hated the process. That he would undertake it now meant that something very bad was happening out there. But Castiel couldn't imagine what he could possibly give Dean to work with.

With a new sense of disquiet, he understood that Dean would keep on pestering him until he got an answer. Sam and Dean were incessant when they wanted something, so Castiel realized he could look forward to hearing Dean's fear disguised as anger in his head for the foreseeable future.

The conclusion of Dean's message carried just the current of raw emotion Castiel had expected, _{For _once_, just let me help you.}_

Normally Castiel was good at following instructions, but this time he didn't know what Dean expected him to do. He couldn't follow the instruction because he didn't know what he was being told to do, and in fact only poorly understood the why. Dean was scared, and he knew Castiel was in trouble, but _why_ he was scared and _how_ he knew Castiel couldn't begin to guess.

So he continued to lie where he was, staring at the drain, and did nothing until he heard the door open. The witch had come back and with her came more pain, and greater fear.

* * *

Dean had been on the verge of dozing off riding shotgun when the panic-terror came back, digging into him so ferociously he was half-convinced he could feel it tearing down his back like the claws of a Hellhound. It was all he could do to bite back the cry of fear that tried to escape his throat.

The effort was sufficient to jerk him fully into wakefulness, and he opened his eyes to find himself staring at the road ahead, which seemed not to be running under the car but somehow about to flow _into_ it, threatening to fill the Impala's interior with asphalt, crushing and suffocating them all like it was a living beast with malevolent intent.

Instinctively, he braced himself against his seat and tried to hit the breaks, before he managed to pull himself together and realize he wasn't driving the car, the breaks he was trying to hit were imaginary, and that the road was -as it had always been- rolling gently away beneath the tires of the Impala.

Still in the inescapable grip of fear, he glanced in Sam's direction, and was relieved to see his brother had his eyes on the road and had noticed nothing. Looking back, he saw Mom was absorbed in her book again. Somehow, it came as a relief that they hadn't noticed his apparently causeless alarm, which managed to wring a few shudders out of him, but he refused to give it the satisfaction of shaking loose even a small whimper. That small act of defiance was enough to send the worst of the terror scampering back into whatever shadow realm it had come from in the first place.

Dean found himself reaching into his jacket pocket for the feather he'd been carrying since he first found it, and was a little bit surprised the feather was still there. There wasn't any reason for him to be surprised, of course. The feather wasn't like a cursed rabbit's foot that would always find some way of getting lost. As far as Dean knew, Angel feathers didn't do much of anything on their own, so there was no reason for him to have lost the feather. So he had no more explanation for his sense of surprise than his fear, which was in itself sort of frightening.

_Cass, come on,_ Dean thought, though it wasn't a fair thing to think, _You gotta give me __**something**__._

In truth, he still did not know if Cass could hear him, or if it was Cass sending him these messages of fear. If it was Cass, Dean didn't think it was on purpose, or else it wasn't working as intended, because the panic-terror was useless and devoid of information, and it was only by painfully slow degrees that he'd figured out it carried with it the conviction that Cass was in trouble. Assuming it was an attempt at communication, Dean knew from personal experience that Cass was better than this.

Back in the days when he appeared in dreams, he had frequently been cryptic, but Dean had learned later that it was because Cass didn't know much, was usually saying all he could, as best he knew how, or else saying exactly what he'd been told to say rather than because he was intentionally being an ass about it. But Cass had _never_ tried to drown Dean in feelings not his own, at most trying to manipulate him with hallucination-like dreams and time travel, never going so far as to warp Dean's mind and emotions. Cass had always had limits, though they had seemed insufficient at the time, especially because Dean hadn't been certain that they existed at all.

Now he trusted Cass, and Cass's people skills had improved dramatically, as had Dean's understanding of Angels. This periodic fear flood wasn't like Cass, for any number of reasons. Yet Dean couldn't help but think it _was_ Cass doing it. He didn't know _why_ he felt that way, he just did.

After a little, the last remnants of fear receded, and Dean let go of the feather, leaving it in his pocket. He made his muscles relax, and took a few deep breaths before starting to feel like himself again. But it wasn't very reassuring, because he had noticed a disturbing increase in the power of the episodes, which seemed to hit every few hours… if the established pattern held.

Dean knew it was possible to die from fright. It wasn't a nice way to go. Unavoidably, it was of course the most frightening way to go. And Dean had once come close enough to doing just that to be afraid of being so afraid, which was fear of a type he'd not experienced in years.

The change of pace was anything but refreshing.

* * *

_{Cass, come on. You gotta give me something.}_

This time Castiel had passed out, however briefly. Lying in a growing pool of the blood he was having growing difficulty replacing, feeling increasingly twisted up inside, choking on fear he couldn't control, the very last thing he needed right now was impatience from Dean.

What he could have used were some clearer instructions. Dean wanted something of him, was insisting on it, but Castiel could not think what, and the repeated demand for 'something' was not making it any more understandable.

In fact, Castiel could think of one way to respond, but Dean had essentially forbidden him from doing it years ago, a restriction he had respected for a long time. In hindsight, Castiel had become aware that it was a worse than hideous violation of a person to invade their dreams, and that from Dean's perspective it had seemed nothing but confusing, manipulative and terrifying, all of which had only served the purpose of making Dean irrationally angry, which in turn made him mean as Hell. Besides which, dreams had never been the most secure method of communicating.

Even if that recourse had not otherwise been barred to him, Castiel was not certain it would work. With the heavy warding, his debilitating injury and destabilizing mental and emotional state, he might do harm even if he could establish contact. Emotions were still new to Castiel, relatively speaking, and he wasn't very good at dealing with them at the best of times. Given his current status, he was afraid to try establishing that kind of contact with Dean, afraid of what it might do to one or both of them.

But the more he turned Dean's words over in his mind, the more it seemed as if that was exactly what he was being told to do. Dean wasn't just giving him leave to do it, but issuing a command. Castiel didn't _have_ to follow Dean's orders, and in fact sometimes he blatantly didn't, but years of experience had taught him to trust the older of the Winchester boys, and to follow his lead, even if it seemed insane. Actually, all things taken into consideration, _especially_ if it seemed insane.

At times, Castiel's failures had been devastating, and his mistakes were on a truly massive scale. But whenever he'd given up trying, Dean Winchester had been there to pull him back, order him to try, to keep fighting. Though it was true that the man was abrasive, ill-tempered and steadfastly refused to ever do even the smallest thing that Castiel had asked of him, it was equally true (and far more significant) that it had been Dean who taught him what it was to be free, what it was to be human. And, in Castiel's darkest moments, it was Dean who had taught him how to deal with despair, and given him a spark of hope when there was precious little of that to be found anywhere in the world. He owed that man more than he would ever be able to repay. Not in Dean's lifetime, anyway.

Castiel was scared, and his thoughts were getting a little muddled, and he wasn't sure how many more times he could endure that spell before he just broke apart. It was fully possible Dean knew more than he did, or could at least more objectively assess the situation. If Dean wanted this, then Castiel had to believe there was a reason, and trust that it was a good one.

He knew better than to think Dean knew exactly what he was doing (because when had that ever been the case?), but he believed that Dean could figure it out along the way if he had to. Though Castiel had made more mistakes than he cared to count, trusting Dean Winchester had never, _ever_ been one of them.

So, trusting, he closed his eyes, and gingerly reached out.


	10. Am I Dreaming?

_My world is spinnin' and spinnin' and spinnin'/  
It's unbelievable/Sends me reeling/  
Am I dreaming?/Am I dreaming?_  
-**A Winter's Tale **_**(Queen)**_

* * *

Spinning, tumbling, falling through impenetrable darkness so thick it seemed like blackstrap molasses... only the thickness was clearly illusion or else he would feel like he was suffocating, not falling at the speed of a meteor. Though it was utterly black, he knew he was falling towards something, knew that there would be a sudden stop at the end that would be so final that it would make the word "end" seem like a cruel joke.

Then, with a familiar fluttering noise, he was lurched to a stop. In the same instant, the darkness was replaced by light, the insubstantial replaced with substance, the fearful exchanged for the surprisingly mundane, the thick and choking blackness switched to a merely unattractive and uniform gray.

Coughing as he inhaled, Dean simultaneously realized that he was still alive, and that he was dreaming. A heart beat or two later, he became aware that he was not alone.

Looking around, Dean at first saw only a mostly empty room, which for a moment reminded him uncomfortably of a hospital, but a second glance revealed that the disorienting gleam off the walls and floor was just the sort of weird lighting and texture dreams sometimes cast on things. Everything in the small space from ceiling to floor was cold, flat, hard, and unrelentingly gray. There were no windows, but there was a small drain in the middle of the floor, and a door that might've been white... a long time ago.

In the manner of dreams, Dean had turned a complete circle without seeing anyone, but then he turned a little more and found Cass standing right behind him. He yelled in surprise and jumped about a foot to the left. Of course Cass didn't bat an eye at this, merely gazed at him impassively.

"Cass, what the hell man?" Dean demanded when his galloping heart slowed down.

Cass frowned, looking both surprised and confused, "You... _told_ me to."

The nature of the phrasing was not lost on Dean, in fact it shook him a little bit. Somehow, Dean just never could quite take it for granted when an Angel did what he told it to. Not even this Angel, whom Dean so often liked to pretend to himself that he'd forgotten even _was_ an Angel. True, Dean's instructions had been for Cass's benefit, but there wasn't any reason in the world that could negate the simple fact that an Angel had heard and obeyed the command of a mere mortal.

"I didn't tell you to yank me off the edge of a cliff," Dean snapped, not the least comfortable with the feelings Cass had unwittingly stirred, and taking his unease out on the only available target.

"Oh," Cass sighed, comprehension apparently dawning, though it was hard to tell if he was apologetic or not, "That was an accident. This was…" Cass paused with evident discomfort, before concluding somewhat lamely, "…difficult to arrange."

That came as a surprise to Dean. In his experience, Angels never seemed to have trouble showing up in his dreams, in fact for awhile they'd done it with something akin to wild abandon, as if whenever they didn't have anything better to do they decided to come and root around in his head for thoughts and emotions and memories in the same way as one would look for a sock in a drawer.

Admittedly Cass at least had been somewhat restrained about it, and Dean had finally decided that Cass may never have liked this form of communication either. But Cass had never let on that it was remotely difficult. Not like time travel had been when he still had his wings.

Thinking of this, Dean remembered the fluttering, "I heard Angel wings."

"Dream logic," Cass replied flatly, "You expected them, so you heard them."

Dean thought it over, and decided that sort of made sense.

It was probably a constant harassment to Cass that he couldn't teleport, seeing as he used to do it just to avoid climbing stairs, but for Dean it was easy to forget about the broken wings. After all, the wings weren't normally visible even in shadow, and it wasn't as if Cass had spent a lot of time flapping around rooms just to show off even when he had functioning wings. So, consciously, Dean knew the wings were broken, and didn't ever think for a minute they weren't, but his subconscious still thought of Angels as having wings, and wings were meant to flap, which often made a noise, though Dean knew it didn't have to. So, in dreams (or this one anyway), he heard the flap of Angel wings.

"So... what the hell are we doin' here?" Dean asked, looking at the room again to make sure it hadn't changed. Except for a ring-bolt set in the concrete next to the drain, it didn't appear to have.

"I was trying to get through to your dream. Couldn't make it," Cass admitted, sounding a little unhappy and embarrassed about it, "So I had to remake it."

"And that _helped_?" Dean couldn't help but ask.

"You're here aren't you?" Cass replied rather shortly.

"Okay, okay, no need to get snippy," Dean said, holding up his hands to forestall additional remarks, then he suddenly lost his patience and again demanded, "But what the _hell_ is going on?"

"I don't know," Cass told him, sighing wearily, "I was hoping you might."

"Me? Why the hell would I know?" Dean asked, "I got up this morning freaked out of my mind, spent the day tryin' _not_ to act like a complete lunatic, and -as far as I know- I just went to bed in a motel on the way to where your phone's GPS says you are."

"Well... I'm not there," Cass said in his most irritatingly matter-of-fact tone of voice, "I don't have my phone. I think I dropped it the second time I got shot."

Dean blinked a couple of times before saying, "Sorry what?"

"I was shot with bullets made of melted down Angel Blades," he clarified, "Several times."

For a moment, Dean had trouble processing this dryly voiced statement. Of all the possibilities he'd been trying not to think about... this one hadn't even made the list. The idea of anyone shooting an Angel seemed ludicrous, perhaps even suicidal on the face of it, but the way Cass said it made it sound like any given Tuesday, and Dean found himself wondering how many shit storms Cass had gotten mixed up in that he'd never thought to mention after the fact, because he sure as hell hadn't made much mention of getting shot with bullets made of Angel Blades.

Vaguely, Dean wondered what it would take to even accomplish the melting process, much less reforge the Blade into bullets. As far as he'd seen, Angel Blades were bordering on indestructible. Then he shook his head, to dismiss the question. Now wasn't the time.

"You seem okay," Dean managed to say after a moment, looking Cass up and down.

"Not really," Cass replied, looking down at himself thoughtfully, "This is just a mental projection, probably more yours than mine."

Dean didn't care about dream physics right now, "So you _are_ hurt. How bad?"

Cass seemed reluctant to answer this question, and so said nothing in response to the question.

"How _bad_?" Dean repeated, more insistently.

"It wouldn't be an issue if not for the warding in this place," Cass said finally, and Dean noticed he'd very clumsily -but obviously purposely- evaded the question.

That meant it was pretty damn bad, and he was trying to keep Dean from worrying by not admitting how bad. Of course, Dean had already blown so far past being worried he couldn't even see it in the rear view, and the fact that Cass was avoiding telling Dean how bad he was hurt only made it worse.

"Warding?" Dean asked, looking around the room.

Briefly, he saw the warding symbols glowing on the walls, before they faded again from view. He didn't know if the symbols were visible in reality or not. What he did know was that there were a lot of them, a few that he was pretty sure he'd never seen before. In truth, he'd only memorized a handful of symbols, and there were hundreds just for Angels, all of which worked just a little differently.

One symbol Dean _did_ recognize seemed like a complete waste of effort, because he was pretty sure it was exclusively to prevent an Angel from teleporting, which of course Cass couldn't do any more, warding or no warding. He wondered if maybe there was another purpose to it that he didn't know about, but he decided here and now wasn't the time or place to ask.

Instead, he remarked on the obvious, "That's a helluva lot of warding for one Angel."

"I don't think she intends for this to remain a one Angel enterprise for very long," Cass replied with a sharply dark edge to his voice, "I think I'm just the beginning."

"Beginning of what?" Dean asked.

Cass sighed, his weariness revealed in the way his shoulders slumped and how he didn't quite manage to meet Dean's eyes as he answered, "I wish I knew."

"Well that's not ominous or anything," Dean grumbled.

Angels weren't supposed to get tired, not in the conventional sense, but Dean knew that was bullshit. Even Angels only had so much energy they could expend before they had to rest and recover. It was just that they didn't get sleepy, or tired from running around or whatever. The sort of expenditure that really took it out of them was often related to healing, either of themselves or others. If Cass looked this worn out even as a mental projection in dreamville, how exhausted was he in reality? Dean knew it was no good asking, Cass would only evade again, and he sensed that they didn't have time for that.

Instead, he persisted in trying to find out what he needed to know now, "Okay, what _do_ you know? Who's this 'she' you mentioned? Do you know where you are?"

"She seems to be a witch," Cass answered, trying to pull himself back together by straightening up a little, "But I don't know where she gets her power from," a haunted look entered his eyes and he was silent for a bit, "I just know it has something to do..." he halted, and Dean detected a shadow of fear in his gaze, before he forged on, "Something to do with my wings. With Angels' wings."

"What would a witch want with wings?" Dean wondered aloud, resisting the urge to try saying that five times fast and instead adding, "Especially broken ones?"

"I don't know," Cass answered, apparently thinking Dean expected him to know, even though he'd already made it pretty damn clear that he hadn't a clue.

"Okay, so where the hell are you? Ballpark," Dean suggested.

Cass didn't say anything, even to deny that he was in a ballpark, but the answer was revealed by the quiet desperation now adding to the fear in his eyes: _He didn't know_.

Dean knew what a thoroughly unnatural condition that was for Cass to find himself in. Cass had always been able to pinpoint his own location on the globe with greater precision than any GPS. Even though he couldn't teleport anymore, he could still sense locations, where he was and where he wanted to be, apparently just as he had been able to when his wings worked.

He must feel like he'd been blinded right now.

Cass' next question revealed the horrifying depth of his disconnection, "How long have I been missing?" Dean knew Cass' sense of time was just as perfect as his sense of space. It had to be for Angels to accomplish even a fraction of the things they were capable of doing.

"Uh... maybe a day?" Dean answered, "I guess it feels longer, huh?"

"I don't know," Cass confessed, and the fear in his eyes now found its way to his voice.

Dean felt a cold chill go down his spine, but at least it was his own dread for a change.

He suspected that something was drastically wrong with Cass in a way the Angel had not indicated. Inability to sense time or location was a big hairy deal for an Angel. This was way beyond simple disorientation. Something was seriously amiss, and Dean was sure it wasn't just bullets, though he was still concerned about how much damage Angel Blade bullets could have done to Cass.

"Okay, okay," Dean said, trying to reassure himself as much as Cass, "That's _okay_. We're gonna figure this out," he took a breath and looked at Cass forthrightly, though Cass was no longer looking at him, "You're gonna be okay. We _are_ goin' to find you. You understand me? We're coming for you."

But Cass didn't answer that, instead looking around the room as though hearing a suspicious noise and trying to gauge where it was coming from.

"Cass? Buddy? You hearin' me?" Dean asked, cautiously stepping closer to the Angel.

Something rattled against the ground and he looked down, noticing for the first time a chain attached to that ring bolt in the floor. Its presence puzzled him. He started to ask about it, but then decided not to.

Cass had taken a step back from him, but it didn't appear to have been with the intent of keeping distance from Dean, had instead been an attempt to move away from something Dean couldn't see or hear, because Cass was looking past him. Dean looked over his shoulder, but there was nothing visible in the dream realm, just the formerly white door. He looked back at Cass, alarmed by the Angel's wide-eyed fear, and the fact that Cass was beginning to tremble visibly. Cass looked like he wanted to take another step back, but instead he held his ground.

"Cass? What's happening?"

"She's back," Cass answered vaguely, still not looking at Dean, no longer fully present in the dream as something outside of it began to demand more of his attention.

"Cass?" Dean persisted, suddenly desperate not to lose contact with Cass.

Something was coming, something that terrified Cass.

Dean saw the panic he'd felt all day in Cass' eyes. He still didn't know if it was Cass who'd been causing his episodes, but whatever the conveyance had been, Dean knew beyond doubt that the fear belonged to the Angel, and it was beyond crippling. Dean needed to know what its source was if he was going to help.

"Cass?" Dean persisted when Cass failed to acknowledge him, not even to look at him, "What's happening? Tell me what's happening."

Shivering violently now, the Angel didn't answer, continued to look past him.

"Cass!" Dean shouted with more ferocity than he he felt, hoping the angry sound of his command would get through what nothing else seemed to be penetrating, "Show me!"

The scene wavered, shimmered like the road in a heat haze, then solidified once more.

Dean found himself kneeling on the floor, aware of chains on his wrists, aware they connected to the ring bolt in the floor, but not looking down at those, instead gazing fixedly at a smoking hot silver-blond dressed in skinny jeans and festive snowflake accented red blouse that had what Dean considered to be a most advantageously cut neckline. Sexy didn't begin to cover it, yet Dean knew fear at sight of her, fear that cut deeper each time she appeared.

Vaguely, Dean was aware that he was seeing the scene as Cass saw it, that the fear the sight of her elicited was Cass's fear, that the fear was not truly of _her_, but of what she would _do_.

Without true comprehension but growing horror, he watched her toss ingredients into a bowl. He heard her begin to mutter in Latin, but he recognized only a few words of the spell, couldn't begin to guess what it was for. Even as he tried to make sense of it, his ability to hear it began to waver, as Cass's focus faltered. A moment later, he heard himself scream, but knew it was actually Cass. Dean remained detached as far as sensation went. He could hear the anguish in Cass's voice, but he couldn't actually feel the pain.

The scene shuddered, trembled, darkened, started losing definition at the edges. Cass was fighting hard for it, Dean could sense the Angel's struggling, _feel_ the effort being expended, knew it was in answer to his demand, but in the end Cass couldn't hold onto his connection with Dean through whatever was being done to him.

All of a sudden Dean felt himself thrown back, as though he was being flung across the room by the wave of a Demon's hand. After that, with frightening swiftness, things started to rush away, the room started to fade, the universe began to grow darker, to flicker out.

The last thing Dean saw clearly chilled him to the bone.

There was nothing left to see anymore but one gray wall, in front of which appeared the massive, emotionally wrenching shadow of Castiel's broken and ragged wings. As Dean stared, the wings spread, shuddered as if in the grip of a seizure, and then a piece of shadow broke off, spiraled down the wall, and suddenly on the no longer existent floor there appeared a feather, just like the one Dean had been carrying around with him all day, only stained with red.

Dean didn't see when the shadow became a solid, didn't perceive that there was a change at all. Though he saw a shadow fall and a feather appeared on the ground, it did not seem as though one had come from the other. It was very disorienting. A second feather followed.

Both feathers were drenched in blood.

Angel's blood.

_Castiel's blood._

But far more jarring was the fading sound of the woman's beautiful yet terrible voice and bell-like laugh as she cried in evident delight, _"It wasn't for nothing."_

Dean's eyes flashed open and he sat bolt upright in bed, unaware of having been yelling in his sleep, realizing he had done so only because he discovered after a gasping moment of completely disoriented alarm that Sam had him by the shoulders and was shaking him.

"Dean! Dean! Wake up!" Sam was calling urgently, fear in his voice, "Dean!"

Dean had started speaking before he was even fully aware of having awakened in the motel, the images of the dream somehow far more vivid than the present reality, "She's tearing him apart, Sammy. She's tearing him apart! She's going to kill him!"

"Who? Dean, what are you talking about?" Sam demanded.

"Cass," Dean said, grabbing his brother's arms for support, and as proof that this was solid reality, "The damn witch is using a spell to rip his feathers out."


	11. I See It Now in a Different Light

_There's red, white, and green shining everywhere/  
And I wish you were here._  
-**Christmas in Heaven **_**(Scotty McCreery)**_

* * *

Mary, in the room next to the boys, heard Dean's yelling through the thin walls. Unable to resist the maternal instinct, she immediately went to investigate. After the warmth of the cheap motel bed, the night air was chilly, and her breath clouded in the light of the parking lot lamps. She didn't waste any time going to the door of the boys' room. She listened to the muffled voices of Sam and Dean for a minute, then cautiously knocked.

"Boys?" Mary called through the door, when she got no response to the knock, "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, Mom," Sam called back, "Just a sec."

A moment later, the door unlocked and Sam stood back to admit Mary into the room. Dean wasn't in view, but the bathroom light was on and the sink was running, and that was enough to explain his absence. Sam shut the door behind Mary, and gestured for her to take a seat at the table by the window.

"What happened?" Mary asked quietly once Sam had settled across from her.

Equally low-voiced, Sam replied, "Dean says Cass talked to him in a dream," after a pause, he clarified, "Cass hasn't done that in years. To be honest, I wasn't even sure he still could."

Mary had heard of Angels appearing to people in dreams, of course. But there were a lot of things she'd heard about them that certainly didn't seem true. She could add visiting in dreams to the list of the remarkable abilities of Angels, a list which did not seem to have an end.

Mary was glad that Castiel was on their side, particularly considering what Dean had to say about other Angels, whom he seemed to have a personal animosity towards that ran deeper than mere monsters and Demons. In fact, sometimes it seemed like he hated them so much he wished Castiel wasn't one of them. She didn't know what the other Angels had done to engender that fury (not in full detail anyway), but she knew it had to have been something pretty awful for Dean to hold a grudge that seemed more marked than that which he generally carried toward nearly any supernatural creature. In part because of that, Mary was absurdly, perhaps even selfishly, grateful that Castiel was not like other Angels (whatever they were actually like), and that he stood by her boys.

"Why wouldn't he be able to?" Mary inquired, her thoughts returning quickly to the subject at hand.

Sam shrugged, then explained with a sigh, "There's a lot of things Cass doesn't do any more. Some of it's because of the broken wings, but I think there's more going on. He's not as powerful as he used to be, not by a long shot-" he broke off the potential elaboration when Dean came back, looking pale and haggard, even in the nearly lightless motel room.

"Didn't realize we were holding a family meeting," Dean grunted, shuffling to his bed and sitting on the end of it, running a hand down his face with a heavy sigh.

Mary wanted to go to him, hug him, tell him it would be alright. But this Dean wasn't the four-year-old boy she knew. This Dean was hostile, standoffish, and so, _so_ angry. She didn't dare approach him for fear of getting burned by all that rage he always had simmering beneath the surface, much of which she suspected was actually directed at her. Not that she could blame him for that.

"Couldn't sleep," Mary said dismissively, "Since it didn't sound like you boys were sleeping either, I figured what the hell, why not pool our insomnia?" she glanced at Sam, hoping her levity was the appropriate tone to take with Dean, but Sam's expression was unreadable.

Dean however, responded with, "Well they say misery loves company."

"Dean," Sam began, "You said a... _witch_?"

Clearly, Sam was less occupied with the family drama than he was with what Dean had told him, whatever that had been. Neither Sam nor Dean paused to catch Mary up. It didn't take long for her to pick up on what was going on even without the help.

Dean did not correct Sam, so he continued, "And she was tearing out Cass's feathers with a spell?"

Mary flinched at that visual image. She had never seen Castiel's wings herself, but she'd seen plenty of depictions of Angel wings. She could too easily imagine the gorgeous feathers being ripped out, like plucking a bird, only while it was still alive, bleeding and screaming in pain.

It was sickening to think about, so she tried not to visualize it too clearly.

Dean did not deny this either, so Sam persisted, "How? Why?"

"Hell if I know," Dean replied with a shake of his head, "Cass wouldn't -or couldn't- tell me."

"I didn't even know there _was_ a spell that could do that," Sam said, "Besides Rowena, I thought most witches couldn't even touch Angels with their magic."

"Yeah well, obviously she ain't most witches," Dean spat with obvious disgust, "The way she carried out that spell, it was like... like it was all a damned game to her," he shook his head, briefly closing his eyes to try and conceal a flash of fear at the recollection, "She was ripping pieces off Cass and... and _laughing_ about it like she'd just won the freakin' lottery."

Interlacing his fingers and putting them behind his head, Sam sat back with a thoughtful sigh, "I mean... we know of at least one spell that needs an Angel feather to work."

"Yeah, _one_ feather," Dean snapped, "You know any that requires a boatload of them? Because Cass seemed to think the witch was looking to add more Angels to her collection."

"Well, we know there's a lot of things out there that want to kill Angels," Sam said, clearly still brainstorming, "_Including_ other Angels. Why not some witch we've never heard of?"

"She did say 'it wasn't for nothing,'" Dean acknowledged, "Which sounded a little like she could be getting back her soul in exchange for killing an Angel," then he shook his head vehemently, "But Cass said he didn't think this was a 'one Angel enterprise.' And the warding on the place seemed like overkill for one Angel to me, even one as good at slippin' the noose as Cass."

"So it could be she wants to kill lots of Angels," Sam suggested without hesitation, "Maybe she's got a quota to meet before the Demon holding her contract rips it up."

"By yankin' their feathers?" Dean scoffed, "You and I both know there's easier ways."

"And we both know _easy_ isn't always the main focus," Sam pointed out, not missing a beat.

"C'mon, Sam," Dean snapped, "Crowley's still King of Hell, and he hasn't had a beef with Cass in a couple of years at least," he rolled his eyes a little as he added, "Not countin' when Cass was possessed by Lucifer anyway… but Crowley's not dumb enough to hold a grudge against the horse for what the rider did."

"Maybe not, but this still smells demony to me," Sam insisted.

"Isn't the important thing _who_ the witch is, and _where_ she's keeping Cass?" Mary ventured hesitantly, looking from Dean to Sam and back again as they turned to stare at her in silence for a moment.

"Cass didn't know where he was," Dean told her, "It was just a gray room, no windows."

Mary observed a flicker of worry cross Sam's face at Dean's assertion that Castiel didn't know where he was, but she didn't know why, other than the obvious, which was that Castiel couldn't tell Dean -or anyone else for that matter- where he was if he didn't actually know.

"Can't you just do what you did when Sam was missing?" Mary asked, "We know where Castiel was taken, more or less, because that's where his phone is. Isn't that enough?"

Even as she'd been speaking, Sam had picked up what she was putting down, and went to retrieve his laptop. He returned to the table, carelessly shoving aside the table's centerpiece, a decorative and highly disposable flannel Santa bucket full of red, green and white cotton balls that had been glued to it.

"I should've thought of the traffic cams hours ago," Dean remarked.

"It's not like you weren't distracted," Sam said, not looking up from his screen, adding, "and I didn't think of it either," without pause, he rolled right on, "You remember what time you called Cass? That seems like the time to start."

"Yeah, I think it was about three in the morning."

Sam nodded wordlessly, rapidly becoming absorbed in the computer. Having read _Terminal Man_ and similar books some years prior to her death, Mary always found the intensity with which people focused on their screens nowadays disturbing.

To her, computers were still strange devices fit more for science fiction and horror than reality. She couldn't help it, because for her the change from almost nobody having a computer in their house to everyone having one or several in their pocket had been abrupt. There had been no transitional period from her point of view, no time to adjust and get used to the idea.

Mary had a phone because it was obviously an integral part of existing in the present, and it had come with a bunch of features and settings she'd found confusing to work through. But, frustrating as the device was, it had helped her to connect with Dean in a simple way from a distance, allowing her to message and play games with him without having to actually face him. She hadn't worked up the courage to do the same with Sam yet, but she was getting there.

While Sam was working at his laptop, Dean reached over the side of the bed and pulled something out of the bag he'd left there. Mary recognized it as the feather he'd been carrying all day, and which it had taken her a ridiculously long time to realize was probably from an Angel.

In the dark, it was evident that the feather emitted a soft glow of pure white light. It wasn't a huge feather, so it wouldn't be a primary, which -at least in birds- grew past the bend of the wing and were the longest wing feathers. All the images Mary had looked at which had any significant detail showed Angel wings as having the same sort of feather set as a bird. Assuming that was accurate, this looked like a covert, the sort of feather that was on the leading edge of the wing when a bird flew.

"It's beautiful," Mary said softly, surprised by her own sense of wonder.

"They always are," Dean replied and handed her the feather to examine, though she suspected that had not been his intention in getting it out to begin with.

Despite his obvious underlying anger towards the race for some unexplained reason, Dean tended to be off-hand in talking about Angels, as if they were no different from any other supernatural thing, no more remarkable than ghosts or vampires or werewolves. But the way he spoke of the feather and handed it to Mary was almost reverential, informing her that he could feel it too.

Angels _weren't _like all the other things. There was something exceptional about them, something awe-inspiring. When they bled, the world seemed to shudder in sympathy. When they screamed in pain, it felt like the universe itself cried out. The feather was just a feather, though it came from an Angel and not a bird, but it _felt_ like a part of something wonderfully mysterious, significant and awesome in some way that humanity was unfit to fathom.

Mary supposed that humans -even Hunters- were hard-wired to feel that way about things which came from Heaven, but it seemed like Castiel's frequent presence among them should have served to desensitize them to it. Instead, somehow, the knowledge that this feather belonged to her son's Guardian Angel made it seem more miraculous.

After a moment, Mary returned the feather, uncomfortable with its effect on her, not wanting to touch it any longer, yet also not wanting the feather to be lost or damaged in any way.

"The book I was reading today has a chapter on Angel wings, a section about the feathers themselves," Mary said, her voice barely a whisper because anything louder suddenly felt sacrilegious for reasons she didn't understand, "It was a little hard to understand because of the translation, but if I understood it correctly, it said that Angels molt in response to prolonged periods of stress," she put special emphasis on the next sentence, "End of the World levels of stress."

Dean had been looking at the feather as she talked, but her final statement apparently startled him and when he looked up at her, she could see in his eyes that she'd apparently just turned a light of comprehension on behind them.

"Well no wonder Cass started leavin' these in the backseat when he got cut off from Heaven," Dean murmured, looking down at the feather and added, "During the Apocalypse, no less," then he sighed and continued with a shake of his head, "What he went through for us. For _me_... I tell ya, sometimes I still don't believe it even though we lived it," his eyes grew unfocused as he mentally turned back the years, remembering those early days, "He wasn't even a Seraph then, but he still took on Archangels to protect Sam and me. _Twice_. He knew what they'd do to him, especially Lucifer. He never expected to survive the Apocalypse, but especially not when he switched to our side of the fight. And..." Dean laughed quietly, "I guess he didn't survive. Not really."

Mary frowned, "What do you mean?"

"Lucifer blew him apart," Dean answered after a brief hesitation, "Snapped his fingers and exploded Cass like he was nothing," Dean sighed at the unpleasant memory, "And it wasn't even the first time Cass had stood his ground against an Archangel for us. He knew what Lucifer would do to him. _Knew_ firsthand. He was scared too," Dean almost sounded surprised by this, as if he hadn't expected to say it, "So damn scared he went to some crazy -completely _insane-_ lengths to get stronger next time he faced an Archangel, one that had already killed him once before besides..." a darker look came into Dean's eyes at this other recollection, "He was terrified, just tryin' to survive, hold Heaven together, and to keep the Apocalypse from starting all over again... and I gave him Hell for it... just like I always do."

"Dean," Sam, hearing his brother, looked up from his screen, "We were _all_ scared. And there was a lot goin' on, not just Raphael," Mary felt a twinge of frustration when Sam didn't elaborate because -while everything she learned about what her boys had gone through was like a knife digging deeper into her heart- she was also dying to know all of it, especially the things her boys avoided telling her.

"I blamed him for all of it," Dean said, as he looked at Sam, "I even blamed him for Bobby."

Sam's breath caught as he looked at his brother, and they were silent for a time, yet Mary saw communication pass between them, messages sent and received that she couldn't read because she was an outsider, despite being their mother.

"So did I," Sam admitted quietly.

Dean hung his head, closing his eyes as he said, "Kids explore their free will by eating dirt, finger painting on walls, and sticking their fingers in empty light sockets; Angels do it by having civil wars, killing each other by the thousands, and poking Leviathans in Purgatory."

"We didn't know what would happen," Sam reminded him, "And neither did Cass. We just did the best we knew how to do at the time. And that includes _you_."

Mary wished desperately that she had more context for what they were talking about, that she had some way of understanding what they'd gone through, of knowing what they'd done and why. She felt closer than ever to understanding the depth and complexity of the Angel's relationship to her boys, yet somehow also as far away as ever. She didn't quite dare ask for details, because she could sense the old wounds those events had left on her sons, and she did not wish to reopen them.

"He never really forgave me for kickin' him to the curb after the Fall," Dean said, "He just... he acted like there was nothin' to forgive, like he didn't even think I'd done anything wrong."

"Dean. _Don't_," Sam interrupted firmly, "There's nothing down that road. You know there's not. And anyway, that's not where we are now."

Dean blinked and took a breath, a new harder edge entering his voice, "No, where we are _now_ is sitting on our hands in a motel while some bitch takes _our_ Angel apart one feather at a time."

Sam sighed unhappily and sat back in his chair, "Yeah, that's about right."

"What?" Mary asked, surprised.

"I've got the last traffic camera that shows Cass driving his pickup. But the next camera is out. The camera after that... about a half dozen vehicles go by in a handful of minutes, but it didn't get a good angle on any of the drivers. I don't see how we can identify our witch's vehicle from this."

Dean got up and looked over Sam's shoulder, studying the laptop screen for himself. The expression on his face was easy enough to read. Their best shot at nailing the bitch had proven to be a blank.

Mary closed her eyes briefly, "I'm sorry."

"No, it was a good idea," Dean said quickly, but she could hear the resigned disappointment in his voice as he spoke, and he avoided her eyes as he added, "It just... didn't work out."


	12. Thoughts Keep Turning

_The fireplace keeps burning and my thoughts keep turning/  
The pages of memories of time spent with you._  
-**Christmas without You **_**(Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton)**_

* * *

Sam knew his brother was more deeply rattled by what was happening now than he wanted to let on. Dean didn't usually look back if he could avoid it, and since the final showdown with the Darkness he'd insisted they all had a clean slate, and that they ought to put the past in a box, forgiveness and forgetfulness all around. But evidently Dean hadn't granted himself absolution as part of the deal, though he'd given it to everyone else in hearing distance.

It was obvious that something he'd seen in the dream had shaken him even more than everything else that was happening, jolted him so badly he'd started to reminisce about Cass as though the Angel were already dead, though he had refused to do that on the occasions when Cass really _had_ been dead (however briefly). Often it had been because Dean was busy feeling angry, or scared or guilty, but Sam knew it went deeper than that, because he could feel it himself.

Angels had always been meant to outlive humanity. When an Angel died, even if it was one that had hated and threatened them, one that really had it coming, there was still a wash of feelings, as though a grave wrong had been committed, perhaps not on the same scale as killing Death, but pretty damn close. When an Angel died, the universe seemed to hiccup, as if the great unseen machinery that kept it all running had briefly lurched as a piece of it snapped off and the rest of the machine had to adjust to compensate. Angels weren't _supposed_ to die. It just wasn't meant to work that way. It felt almost wrong to mourn them, because it was a tangible admission that a celestial being had been obliterated, and even the mourning seemed like a sin.

In a bizarrely roundabout way, Dean was almost grieving Cass in advance, just in case, because he knew he wouldn't be able to later. He wasn't admitting defeat, but the possibility had obviously crossed his mind, along with the guilt of all the years that he carried around with him, refusing to lay that burden down even though he knew it would someday crush him beneath its weight for good.

That was how Dean was, how he'd always been. And it was sure a helluva lot better than when he'd suddenly put down that burden and gone off on a demonic summer of chaos with the King of Hell. Sam just wished the burden could be lightened without Dean's also losing his humanity, his memory, or himself in the process. But that wasn't his brother's way.

Truthfully, Sam's mind had been going down the same road as Dean's, revisiting all the darkest hours the Angel had seen them through, the times when Cass had needed them but they'd been too busy with their own traumas to bother about his, and the times when they'd felt Cass had betrayed them. But, as he'd told Dean, there was nothing for them down that road, and nothing that would help Cass _now_ either.

After several minutes of uncomfortable silence, Mom suddenly spoke up, "Wait. You said there's a camera _before_ where Cass was stopped, and one _after,_ right?"

"Yeah, there's a lot of cameras along the interstate," Sam replied, not following her line of thought.

"And both those cameras recorded the time every car went by, right?" Mary inquired.

Sam felt a flicker of understanding, but was too sleep deprived to quite grasp it, "Yes..."

"So the witch had to have driven past the first camera _and_ the second, just like everybody else."

"But more time would've passed between when her vehicle disappeared from view and when it reappeared than for any of the others because _she_ was the only one of them that stopped," Sam realized in sudden excitement, "Mom, you're a genius!"

"That'll take some doing to figure out," Dean observed.

"It's not like we were sleeping anymore tonight anyway," Sam pointed out, becoming absorbed in the task which had been set before him, "If we can get the car, we can get the license. If we're lucky, it's got LoJack. If we're unlucky... well at least we'll be able to find out who owns it and where they live."

* * *

Dean felt cold. But it wasn't the kind of cold that could be fixed with a jacket or a blanket. It was a coldness caused by apprehension that was almost on the scale of horror. The feeling was his own, and in a way that was what now alarmed him. The earlier, wild and terrible panic that had gripped him was gone, the only fear he felt now was his own.

It should have felt better than having a strange terror inflicted on him, but he knew that fear had belonged to Cass. That Dean couldn't feel it now was upsetting because it led him to wonder what had happened to Cass after the connection broke. He had heard Cass's cry of agony, had seen the wrenching of the Angel's wings, the falling feathers and the blood, and he found himself wondering if Cass had even survived it. It had been a lot to take, even for somebody as tough as Cass.

Angels were oddly fragile, once you figured out their vulnerabilities. If you knew how to hurt them and had the tools, it was shamefully easy to do. Snapping them psychologically was easier still. Putting them back together -assuming they survived- _that_ was another matter.

One of the most powerful types of beings in creation, Angels had never been meant for pain and injury, and they couldn't deal with either very well. Cass was remarkable in a lot of ways, not the least of which was his ability to take what would have shattered a lesser Angel, to keep putting himself back together and carry on no matter what happened. But even Cass had his limits, and Dean got the sense that the abuse of his wings was damn close to them.

Dean also found himself thinking about what Mom had said, that Angels molted in response to stress. He instinctively felt the truth of that statement, and remembering the exact times when he'd started finding Angel feathers in and around the Impala seemed to confirm the thought.

It wasn't just when Cass got a little stressed, like after a tense encounter or fight, but when he was in a prolonged state of extreme strain. While recovering from the effects of Rowena's spell, for example, Cass had all but carpeted the Bunker with feathers, though mostly the floor of his room. For a little while there, Dean had thought Cass might _never_ stop shedding, and that choking on Angel feathers might be how he would finally die. But of course those feathers had come out naturally, and there hadn't been any blood, nor had Cass seemed to be in physical pain from their loss.

In fact, Cass had for all intents and purposes behaved as though he was oblivious to the feathers he was leaving everywhere. Sam and Dean, despite their annoyance, had decided between them not to bring up the matter, just pick up the feathers and put them away without comment. They hadn't needed to be told molting was triggered by extensive trauma to get that Cass was in a bad way for weeks even after the curse had been taken off him.

As he thought about it, Dean realized that there must've been times Cass was very stressed and neither he nor Sam had even been aware of it. Cass had only shed copiously on a couple of occasions, but a look at the chapter of Mom's book said that Angels didn't normally shed _at all _unless they were distressed, but that their feathers "fell from Heaven to Earth like snow in times of tribulation."

Dean supposed that the times thousands of years ago when Angels had come to Earth had been trying periods, and he had a sudden mental image of a ghost town with scores of Angel feathers blowing down main street instead of dust and tumbleweeds. It was a weird picture, one he didn't care for much, though in truth thinking about the present instead didn't make him feel much better.

Winchesters looked out for their own, were always there for family, whether or not that family was blood. But the fact that Sam and Dean hadn't even _noticed_ when Cass was internally tied up in so many knots that he started molting said they'd never looked out for the Angel as if he was one of their own. Never looked out for him as well as they should have, nor even as well as Dean had indirectly promised on more than one occasion when he'd told Cass he was part of the family, like a brother.

Once Mom hit on her idea, Dean had gotten up and joined Sam at the table with his own laptop, helping his brother sift through all the traffic the cameras had recorded in order to speed up the process.

But his gaze kept straying from the screen to the feather, which he'd set down on the table in place of the holiday bucket (which had by this point found its way under the table, where it lay utterly ignored by all three of them). The feather softly rocked in the breeze generated by the room's A/C unit, shimmered as it caught the light from Dean's laptop screen.

Though if Dean had lost track of the feather and then found it later he would have been able to instantly identify it, it still looked somehow different each and every time he gazed at it. It was always that way with Angel feathers. Looking at them was always a new experience, he never got used to it.

Somehow, looking at the feather seemed reassuring, even though Dean knew that Angel feathers didn't disappear or change if the Angel which had produced them was killed, so the feather's presence told him nothing about Cass's current condition. However, it told him more than he'd wanted to know about how Cass had been feeling of late. It hadn't exactly been a stellar year for the Seraph.

Being possessed by Lucifer couldn't have been a picnic, especially not once Amara started torturing him. Then the frantic search for Sam, the hunt for the Devil, the conception of a Nephilim... Ishim... Ramiel... and that was just the last year of bad.

The feather was faintly glowing, a shimmering proof of _how_ bad, a solid object set in reality as evidence of how irresponsibly, how perfectly _willingly_ Dean had been overlooking the ongoing suffering of his friend and semi-adopted brother in favor of fixing his attention on his family's personal troubles, not to mention being preoccupied by the struggle to ignore the proverbial dark clouds on the horizon that warned something big and bad was coming.

As usual, Cass was getting lost in all the noise. After that night in the barn, Dean had sworn to himself that would never happen again. Disconsolately, he found himself wondering if that promise had been not enough, and also just a little too late. Somehow, everything else always seemed to take priority. Not that there wasn't good reason for it, the fate of the world was frequently in the balance.

He didn't want to think that way. In fact, he was determined not to think that way.

Nonetheless, he couldn't help but be aware of that ominous peace where before there'd been fright, the overpowering need to do something, the fierce sense of not only knowing a disaster was in progress, but actually being able to see and feel and experience it. Now it was just what he himself knew and felt, nothing supernaturally impressed. Uncomfortable as it had been, it had been some kind of sign that Cass was alive, that there was still time to save him.

Now there was nothing.

"Got it," it had been a long time since Sam had said anything that sounded half so beautiful to Dean's ears, and he let out a breath of relief he hadn't been aware had been trying to escape, as Sam continued, "We have a silver four-door Mazda sedan. It exits the frame of camera A at two fifty-seven AM, but it doesn't appear in Camera C's view for almost half an hour, driving at the speed limit."

Sam flipped his laptop around so Dean and Mom could look at the proof on the screen for themselves. In the upper part of the screen, Sam had the final view of the vehicle from Camera A's position. In the lower part, the first view of the vehicle from Camera C. The camera they were calling B, of course, was the one not operating. The images from both A and C contained time stamps. Sam then poked the keyboard to back up the first image until they could all make out the license plate on the front.

"Bingo," Dean remarked.

They didn't have the bitch yet, but they were now a big step closer. Even so, Dean still couldn't help but wonder if they were making progress fast enough. Looking over the top of the laptop at Sam, he saw that his brother felt it too. This thing was a long way from finished, and they couldn't even be sure Cass was still alive. But they had to try. They owed it to Cass to at least do that much. Hell, some days it felt like they owed him everything.

The night outside was silent, but Dean felt anything but calm about it.

* * *

The Demon was wearing an aggressively ordinary looking man in his late forties, with a stern jawline, blue eyes and salt and pepper hair, clothed in plaid and denim and calfskin boots. Beneath the surface lay a countenance far more hideous, infinitely more terrible and wholly malevolent.

Harrow would not have dealt with it if she could have avoided doing so. Like all Demons, this one was a nasty piece of work. As a former Crossroads Demon, it was in the nature of this Demon to try and find some way to make a deal, to get what it wanted by trading one thing for another. This had become a difficult thing to accomplish in recent years. The Demon had cut ties with Hell right after the disappointingly brief Apocalypse, and had been low-level enough that even once Hell started to put itself back together and get organized again, no one had put any serious effort into looking for it.

Whenever the pressure came on, The Demon would find a few souls to damn, which seemed to satisfy the King of Hell enough that The Demon went ignored for awhile. But the numbers were necessarily limited, because otherwise the signs would become too obvious for Hunters to ignore. So the Demon had learned to do what it could to minimize signs of its presence, or disguise those signs as belonging to some other sort of monster, one uninteresting to the more avid Demon Hunters out there.

She knew that The Demon was looking for a way to get her damned, but so far she had always been able to offer it something besides her soul that it wanted. Sometimes someone else's soul. But as she grew more independently powerful, studying and practicing non-demonic witchcraft, she knew The Demon would become more insistent. It knew that once she no longer needed it, it would no longer be able to make deals with her. It wanted to make sure and damn her first.

And it had been pretty close to doing just that, when she came up with her grand scheme. All had been going fairly well on that line, right up until The Demon had heard the Angel scream and come to see it face-to-face, at which time it became apparent that this wasn't just _any_ Angel they'd gotten hold of.

At sight of the Angel, The Demon's eyes changed, those windows to the soul revealing Hell as it spoke in a mocking voice, "Castiel... one of God's Chosen, now a Fallen Seraph. The rebellious Angel who sided with men over Heaven and God. Guardian of the Demon Hunting Winchesters."

She had no idea what The Demon was on about, though of course she'd heard of the Winchesters.

One could hardly be aware of the broader reality that most of humanity lived in ignorance of without knowing about the Winchesters. And one certainly would not have a long witching career if one was not careful to avoid invoking their wrath. Other Hunters didn't scare her, but the Winchesters... it was said they had stormed Hell more than once, brought down The Devil himself, sent Leviathans running and overcome The Darkness. She cringed inwardly at the thought of them.

"There's only one thing to do," The Demon said calmly, "We have to kill the Angel."

Harrow didn't like that. She'd worked too damned hard just to get this one Angel.

She objected, "That was not our agreement."

"I'm _changing_ the agreement," The Demon informed her in an icy tone, "You get all the feathers out of the Angel that you can, but I want it dead before Christmas. You'll have to catch another Angel and start over in a new location."

"There's no way the Winchesters can find us. We've been too careful for too long for _any_ hunters -or Angels- to track us. The reason I came up with this was because I knew we could get away with it."

With a growl, The Demon made its position clear, "This is the Seraph not even the prison in Heaven could hold for long, the one that raised Dean Winchester from Hell, the one Angel strong enough to carry Lucifer Himself. If we try to keep it, either it will escape or the Winchesters will search relentlessly until they find it – and us. And, if we let it go, it will tell the Winchesters all that it knows -which is probably more than either of us think- and they will hunt the both of us to the ends of the Earth. I, for one, have no intention of returning to Hell," it repeated emphatically, "Kill the Angel."

After a brief hesitation, she said, "Yes."


	13. What is Left

_The yuletide carol doesn't make it better.  
_**-What Do The Lonely Do At Christmas **_**(The Emotions)**_

* * *

The pickup was parked on the slanted ground beside the road, the driver's door hanging open, unregarded by passing motorists, all of whom were too busily involved in their own version of the holiday spirit to be concerned about an abandoned vehicle.

In fairness, no one could see the blood from the road.

The cab's interior had been splashed with it like somebody had been throwing paint, soaking into the driver's seat, speckling the windshield and spilling onto the floor. But most of it had ended up on the frosted grass beside the truck, a small circle of which had been stained dark red. A few feet away, half buried in the dirt, was Cass's phone, which had only about three percent of its charge left. Cass wasn't good about remembering to keep his phone charged even at the best of times, but for once it wasn't his fault that the device was nearly drained of power.

While Mom and Sam inspected the scene for potential information before deciding what to do with the truck, Dean stood several feet away, turning in a slow circle and scanning the horizon as though looking for a sign. He knew Cass wasn't here, yet was probably looking for the Angel anyway.

The Mazda had turned out to belong to one Lisa Harrow, supposedly a twenty-something Austinite who had no serious form of employment and lived in a neighborhood in the southern part of the city. According to Dean, the picture on the driver's license matched the woman he'd seen through Cass's eyes. Her vehicle unfortunately did not have LoJack, so they were heading to her home address.

Since it was on the way, they'd decided to stop and get the pickup, relocate it to somewhere a little less conspicuous. They had not come here looking for Cass. And yet Dean gazed searchingly, even hopefully, into the distance as though he'd expected to have some kind of epiphany here.

He was more himself than he'd been yesterday, though it had only been with reluctance that Sam allowed him to drive. Dean had blasted them with Mannheim Steamroller, which Mom had said was the best kind of Christmas music, an assertion that had provoked an immediate investigation on Dean's part. For the last month, Steamroller had temporarily supplanted Dean's usually preferred Metallica, Motorhead, Led Zeppelin, and other metallic relics from the 80s. Sam wasn't sold on Steamroller like Dean was, but had given up objecting a long time ago.

But Dean's return to normalcy actually worried Sam, because he could read his brother's fear and desperation to find Cass before something bad happened, and knew that was all Dean. Sam feared what might happen if they didn't find Cass soon. Already, Dean was entering a downward spiral, and right now they had every reason to believe Cass was alive. Additionally, they were making fast progress on tracking down the person who had taken him. Typically, Dean would have taken heart from both things, and would have become more emotionally stable, at least until it was all over.

Instead, Dean seemed to regard this new development as a bad sign. Sam could hardly blame him, all things considered. They knew Cass was in trouble precisely _because_ of the feelings that Dean had been all-but overwhelmed by. The sudden lack of supernatural input seemed to be a sign in itself, and not a good one. But Sam wasn't as convinced of that as Dean seemed to be.

Since Sam hadn't experienced it, he didn't really know what it was like, but he wasn't sure if that meant he had less insight into it, or merely a more objective viewpoint. What he _did_ know was that Dean felt certain that they were on a clock that was fast winding down, if it hadn't stopped already.

Dean's instincts being what they were, Sam wasn't inclined to doubt his brother's feeling on the subject, though he hoped with everything he had that Dean was wrong.

* * *

Everything hurt.

Pain was now the single defining fact of existence. There did not seem to have been a time when agony had not been all-pervading, nor did it seem at all likely that there would ever be a time in the future when it was not all-consuming. The pain simply was, and felt as if it had always been, and therefore always would be. The pain was not just physical, but spiritual, and everything in between. The entire universe was composed of it, and there was no escaping from that universe. There was only pain. There had only ever been pain. There would only ever be pain.

Pain, and the smell of The Demon, so nauseatingly strong that Castiel could almost _taste_ the foul thing's presence, which constituted mostly just another variety of pain. Castiel could not remember seeing any Demon here, did not remember when or by what means it had arrived. Like the pain, it simply was, and perhaps -like the pain- it had also always been.

He was fairly certain that The Demon hadn't always been in the room, but it was in the room now, staring down at Castiel with cold, calculating hatred. Castiel gazed back with equal loathing, though he was pretty sure he was incapable of calculating anything more complicated than the answers to basic arithmetic problems, which was a pretty damn low level for him, though not the lowest he'd ever been.

Or maybe it was, he honestly wasn't sure anymore.

The witch was also in the room, preparing her damned spell for... Castiel couldn't remember whether this was the fifth or fiftieth time. His mind was definitely starting to slip. The rest of him was no better. Probably before long there wouldn't be much of anything left of him. He found himself wondering in a detached sort of way if the pain would still be here, even once he was gone.

He decided it probably would be. Like The Demon, the pain was a presence within the room, an entity unto itself. He figured the pain was strong enough that it no longer needed him as a host to support it.

Yes. Starting to slip. Definitely.

They were going to kill him, the witch and The Demon. He knew that, though he did not know why. He didn't think that had been the witch's intent at the start, though nothing she did had ever made sense to him, so perhaps he had misunderstood her purpose from the start. But even if his death had always been the ultimate goal, something about what her intent had once been and what it now was were not the same, and what mattered was the now.

And _now_, her intent was to kill him.

Lying on the floor, staring at The Demon, Castiel heard Dean's voice somewhere at the back of his mind. Dean was not praying to him now, so it was only the memory of Dean's voice addressing him, but sometimes a memory is enough. Dean had told Castiel to give him something, to meet him halfway, to "for once" let Dean help him. Though Castiel had managed to reach Dean in a dream, he realized that he had nonetheless failed to follow the instruction.

All he had done was inform Dean of the trauma he was experiencing. He had not told Dean where he was, why this was being done, who was doing it to him, or anything that Dean would consider useful information. Dean had given him a command, and he'd chosen to obey, but had yet to carry out the order. Somehow, he had to find a way to do more.

That concept managed to pierce through the pain, gave him something to anchor to, something to focus on. Somehow, he had to find a way to answer Dean's questions.

_Somehow..._

* * *

Less than an hour later, they arrived at the residence of Lisa Harrow. The house was short, squat, square and built on a small lot. The white structure looked more like an accident of nature than an actual building someone had actually decided to create, sandwiched between two equally unattractive houses now garishly decorated for Christmas with strings of lights, inflatable Santas and reindeer. Lisa Harrow's house was devoid of any holiday cheer, which served only to highlight how ugly it was.

"Wow," was Sam's remark, delivered in a slightly appalled tone.

"I didn't know houses came this ugly," Dean agreed.

Mary couldn't argue with that. She'd seen a lot of dilapidated shacks, but most of them had the excuse of age, poor maintenance or shoddy construction. But this pathetic example of architecture didn't have those excuses. It was just... it was just plain _ugly_. There wasn't any other thing to say about it.

"And you're saying... a witch lives _here_?" Dean asked his brother.

Sam was the one who'd gotten the address, and apparently Dean was going to hold him responsible if this travesty of home construction turned out not to belong to the witch they were looking for.

"I mean, it's the address that was on the driver's license. You can look at it if you want to," Sam replied.

Mary understood the source of Dean's doubt. Usually witches were pretty big on personal luxury and appearance. Their first spells often involved home improvement. Even if the house was hideous, a basic spell cast on it could convince viewers that it was quaint or even attractive, or at the very least some magic could pour a little beauty into a garden outside the house. That had not happened here. If this was where a witch lived, she was evidently a rather odd sort, even by witch standards.

As previously arranged, Dean cut around behind the house, while Mary and Sam went up the front walk, so that Dean could put a stop to anyone running out the back while they went to the door. The doorbell sounded like a cat trying to meow with a hairball caught in its throat, and was such an awful sound that Sam and Mary exchanged identical looks of distaste.

But nobody answered the bell, or the knock which followed. Listening, Sam heard no sounds coming from within the house, and he tried the door, which proved to be not only unlocked, but unlatched as well. He pushed it open cautiously, using the outside wall for cover and peering quickly around the corner to scan the interior of the house for threats.

Then Sam led the way inside, and Mary followed.

After the blandly undecorated exterior, Mary had not been at all prepared for the interior, which was not only decorated, but a far cry from bland. They had entered directly into a living room that was as devoid of holiday spirit as the property outside, instead being filled with what appeared to be a very shockingly erotic one.

The couch and obligatory fireplace were innocuous enough on their own, and there wasn't anything grossly overt, but the immediate feel of the place was that some disturbingly lustful thoughts had gone into its decoration. Though the artwork and figurines on the mantel, coffee table and end tables were mostly abstract, they all seemed to be indefinably -yet most assuredly- phallic in nature and line.

The way Sam cleared his throat suggested he saw it too, and was just as unsettled by this turn as Mary. Still, they both managed to keep their minds on the job, that of clearing the house, and mostly ignore the surroundings. While Mary took the first floor, Sam continued up to the second. Mary was glad she wouldn't have to see the bedrooms in this place.

Carefully avoiding looking too closely at the suggestive décor, which was primarily in the red, gold and black family, Mary went through the dining room and kitchen, where she found a sliding glass door that led out back. She opened it and waved for Dean to come in, though she would have preferred both he and Sam stay outside. Since they were in their thirties, and because she could hardly have avoided finding out about Dean's porn collection, she knew they'd lost their innocence on the subject long ago... but it was the kind of thing you could know without ever acknowledging out loud.

There were certain rules about the subject, one of which certainly should have been "Never Roam Aspiring Houses of Ill-Repute with Your Own Offspring."

But it too late now.

Directly across from the glass door was a wall calendar, and Dean squinted at it as he entered the kitchen and asked, "Is that a dick or a naked lady?" he sounded half-way between horrified and turned-on, which was a tone Mary could have happily lived her life without ever hearing from him.

"Mind on the mission," she admonished sharply, and Dean flinched visibly, though it still took him a second to disengage from the calendar 'artwork.'

"Right," he said after a moment, blinking and turning to look at Mary, "Anybody home?"

"Not so far," Mary replied, and she led the way to the living room to find Sam descending the stairs, looking thoroughly ashamed of whatever he'd seen up there.

"No witches. No Angels," was his report.

"Dammit," Dean growled irritably, looking around the room as though expecting to spot the witch hiding behind one of the raunchier pieces of artwork on the walls, then he seemed to regret looking around, because the interior was as ugly as the exterior, just markedly more uncomfortable to look at.

Mary couldn't believe anyone _lived_ in a place like this.

"I did find some sulfur," Sam continued, clearing his throat and declining to say _where_ he'd found it.

Dean obviously understood what Sam hadn't said, "Gross."

"Yeah," Sam agreed curtly, "Can we go now?"

Dean looked around the room again, and Mary could see the quietly growing fear in his eyes, as he looked past the noxious adornments of the room to the stark reality that Castiel wasn't here, and they didn't know where else to look for him. However ugly this house was, the fact that they had failed to find their Angel made it a thousand times more hideous.

"Yeah," Dean sighed, "Yeah, we can go."

Sam gave his brother a look of understanding, but Dean was still staring around at the interior, looking for something, _anything_ that might lend them some insight into where the witch might be, or where she might be keeping Castiel. But of course nothing useful jumped out, because the abode was flawlessly tidy when it came to receipts or other scraps of paper lying around.

However, as he looked around, Dean suddenly paled and staggered slightly, eyes widening as they filled with new and greater fear. The muscles of his jaw tightened, and he seemed to stare at the carpet without seeing it, his breath coming more rapid and shallow by the moment.

"Dean?" Sam inquired, then repeated more urgently, "Dean!"

When Dean failed to respond, Sam grabbed his brother's arm, and shook him firmly. Dean looked at him vaguely, and started to tremble a little.

Mary looked on, unsure of what she could do to help.

Despite having been headstrong and independent from the time she was quite young, Mary had been accustomed to following her father's lead on hunts. And Dean had a very natural take-charge attitude that sometimes was on one side or the other of the border of being aggressively dominating. Like Sam and Castiel and countless others before her, Mary simply fell into the easy habit of following Dean's lead most of the time. When Dean faltered, she wasn't sure what to do.

"Let's go," Sam suggested, but his tone had the imperious quality of command, something Mary hadn't heard in him before. Neither she nor Dean argued.

Sam didn't let go of Dean as they exited, essentially pushing his unresisting brother down the walk, then turning and guiding Dean to sit on the front fender of the Impala. Dean said nothing throughout, and his wide eyes seemed not to see his brother, mother, or in fact any of his surroundings whatsoever.

Dean shook, and his throat moved as if he would've liked to whimper, but he didn't make a sound. Sam and Mary waited without speaking, Sam with both hands on his brother's shoulders to steady him, Mary standing back and watching worriedly, feeling helpless and useless. After an interminable number of seconds, Dean's breathing evened out, and he blinked, looking at first Sam, then Mary, then back.

"I'm okay," he said, but his voice was unnaturally faint.

"Yeah, nobody believes that," Sam retorted sharply, keeping his hands on his brother's shoulders, "What the hell was that?"

"Same thing that kept happening yesterday," Dean replied, then started to shake his head, which seemed to severely test his balance even as he sat leaning against the Impala; he closed his eyes and swallowed hard before he concluded, "But it was stronger. A _lot_ stronger."

"Well that can't be good," Mary observed quietly.

Dean took a few deep breaths, recovering rapidly from his scare, before opening his eyes again, revealing the renewed determination there and replying, "It means Cass is still alive. That's something more than we knew a minute ago."

In the silence that followed, none of them dared ask the obvious questions. Even allowing that what had happened to Dean was indication that Castiel was still alive, for how much longer could they expect that to be the case? And how much worse would things get for Dean before it was all over?


	14. A Mind to Anger Inclined

_Good fortune attend each merry man's friend/  
That doth but the best that he may._  
-**In Praise of Christmas **_**(Loreena McKennitt)**_

* * *

The Angel had clearly lost the last of whatever it had been using for a mind, which came as no great surprise to Harrow, because that loss was practically built into the spell she'd designed.

For quite a number of years, she'd managed to make a pretty penny off the Angel feathers she collected and sold. Harrow had made it her business to track the movements of Angels, to read the signs of where they had been (in particular where they had done battle), and to show up once the fireworks were over to look for feathers. Sometimes Angel feathers even fell from Heaven, and she knew how to detect when those arrived safely on Earth somewhere as well.

But when the Angels' wings were snapped and they fell from Heaven like thousands of holy meteors, suddenly the supply dried up, just as demand was growing higher than ever as more people became aware not just of the existence of Angels, but the purposes to which their feathers could be put. Harrow hadn't been able to make a decent haul of feathers since finding a couple dozen in a library a few years back, nowhere near enough to meet the demand. The scarcity of the feathers meant prices on them could be increased, but that was only helpful if you actually _had_ feathers to sell.

With their wings broken, many Angels did not even appear to _have_ feathers (or at least they didn't have feathers worth possessing), or replace them after shedding them. Beyond that, while humans had been being born, growing up, living, reproducing and dying for centuries, as Harrow understood it there had been no new Angels since almost the dawn of creation. Their numbers were finite, and rapidly dwindling for reasons Harrow didn't entirely understand, or particularly care about. Hell made more Demons, Earth made more humans, but Heaven... the number of Angels, much less Angels with feathers, was dwindling rapidly. Soon, there might be no Angels left at all.

The time to act was obviously now.

So Harrow had studied what made Angels shed their feathers, and had developed a spell capable of rapidly pushing them into doing it. That had been easier said than done. If stressed in the wrong way, Angels might start doing any number of undesirable things. For instance, burning nearby bushes or speaking in tongues instead of losing feathers, and Harrow had no use for smoked shrubberies.

She hadn't intended to kill the Angel. Feathers had the potential to grow back, after all, and it would be a lot easier to hold a weakened Angel than to have to go out and get another each time she wanted to collect a new set of feathers. Finding an Angel in the first place was a nuisance. Bringing a healthy Angel under her control was notably more so. Besides, she'd wanted to work the bugs out of the spell before expanding her enterprise.

But The Demon was insistent that this Angel had to die, and had to do so quickly, otherwise they risked gaining the unwanted attention of the Winchesters.

At least The Demon hadn't insisted that the Angel die _immediately_. Angel feathers and Angel's blood were both worth a lot, and it would be a shame not to collect them while they were available, especially since the feathers of a Seraph were worth a lot more than, say the feathers gleaned from a mere Cupid. And what were the chances she'd be able to catch another Angel of this caliber?

The interesting thing about Angels was that molting feathers for them was more like self-plucking in birds than true molting. They didn't have a seasonal shed, didn't exchange old feathers for new every couple hundred years or anything like that. It was specifically in stressful situations that they started to lose feathers. Physical stress could factor in, but it was usually the psychological stuff behind it that got them losing their feathers in more than just ones and twos. Thus, logically and necessarily, the spell Harrow designed had to put mental stress on the Angel until it began to lose its feathers.

Unlike a bird, you couldn't just pull feathers out of an Angel, it had to lose them on its own, or else pluck one for itself and give it to you. So Harrow had been moderately surprised by the fact that the spell seemed to produce an effect like pulling feathers out of a bird. The process was obviously painful to the Angel, and its shed feathers were sheathed in Angel's blood, which didn't happen with natural molting in Angels. Harrow hadn't figured out why that happened yet, but she suspected it had to do with the element of the spell that made the shadow of the wings manifest visually.

Harrow didn't worry about it much, except that she was pretty sure it meant that potentially permanent damage was being done to the Angel. Damage that might prevent it from growing new feathers, or even potentially reduce the quality of the feathers she was getting now.

The whole point of catching an Angel and pulling its feathers with a spell was to have a steady supply of them so that the demand could be met. If the Angel didn't grow new feathers, or if the lost feathers were worthless, then the whole endeavor was a waste of time until the problem was sorted out.

Unfortunately, it seemed Harrow wouldn't get the opportunity to analyze what the spell was doing or start tweaking it to make it do what she wanted more efficiently until the next Angel. However, she planned to get all the feathers she could out of this one. She'd consider it a holiday bonus, one she needed if she was to keep the damned Demon from taking it (quite literally) out of her hide.

The Demon wanted its cut, and it seemed deeply unsettled by the fact that Harrow had unintentionally come into possession of the one Angel in all of creation that belonged to the Winchesters.

Really, it wasn't all that surprising that she had. There weren't many Angels on Earth now, most had returned to Heaven. Actually, there just weren't many Angels left _anywhere_. The species definitely belonged on the critically endangered -shortly to be extinct in the wild- list of supernatural creatures.

So it had almost been inevitable that Harrow would get her hands not on an Angel of the Lord, Servant of Heaven, but instead the Angel of Sam and Dean Winchester, the one and only Angel _known_ to reside permanently on Earth, almost entirely cut off from Heaven. Inevitable, but undesirable.

What convinced her the Angel had now taken leave of its wits was that it had rallied such strength as it had remaining to do something completely idiotically pointless: It had begun to taunt The Demon.

At first, it had seemed conversational enough, but soon it was obvious that the Angel _wanted_ to provoke The Demon's wrath. Harrow wondered if it was a compulsion with Angels, they just hated Demons so much that they couldn't help themselves. After all, Angels were in the natural order of things more powerful than Demons, that was just how the two creatures had been designed. Angels were used to Demons being virtually helpless against them, unless the Demons attacked in numbers. Numbers and ability to replace their fallen had been one of the advantages of the Demons. But a crippled Angel in a room warded against his kind was worse than helpless against a Demon.

A world of hatred burned in the Angel's blue gaze when it spoke to The Demon, asking, "What does Crowley want with me? It's been months since we were last in conflict."

"Oh I don't work for Crowley," the Demon purred without hesitation, "I'm strictly freelance. Have been ever since the Apocalypse ended. I never did send Sam Winchester a fruit basket for that one," the Demon smiled a little, amused by its own joke, "Oh well, maybe I'll send him a Christmas card."

The Angel was not amused, but it saw an opening to needle The Demon, and took the presented opportunity, "Well that seems very foolish. I hear the King of Hell doesn't have much patience for rogue Demons," the Angel's eyes narrowed, "Unless of course you're so weak or incompetent that he doesn't consider you to be a threat."

With typically demonic ego, The Demon rose at once to the bait. Though The Demon was not strictly aligned against Crowley, though it had no reason to pretend otherwise, and though there was nothing to be gained from lashing out at an Angel already scheduled for death, it just couldn't help itself. In the face of an Angel's mockery, The Demon gave in completely to its wrathful urges, the very urges it had been repressing and cleverly disguising to avoid drawing attention. The denial of its infernal rage seemed to only have made its anger that much stronger, and it now gave vent to it against the Angel.

Gesturing furiously, The Demon hefted the Angel and flung it across the room, snapping the chain at the ring-bolt in the process. The plaster cracked where the Angel impacted, and a shower of dust fell from the ceiling. The Angel fell to the floor, coughed once, but then only lay looking silently unimpressed. Flames of mocking rage seemed to blaze in the Angel's eyes, or anyway that was what The Demon opted to perceive.

Abandoning supernatural theatrics in favor of physical dominance, The Demon went and grabbed the Angel by the collars of its shirt and coat, lifted and pinned The Angel against the wall, eyes black with Hellfire. The Angel gazed back with equal hatred, fearless towards The Demon despite its very obviously increasing terror of Harrow herself (or, more accurately, the spell she cast).

Harrow wondered vaguely if Angels were actually _incapable_ of being afraid of Demons.

"If you kill him," Harrow warned coolly, "His feathers will burn out."

When they died, the wings of Angels burned their shadows into whatever lay behind them. There was no way Harrow knew of to get feathers out of a dead Angel, though in truth she couldn't be sure the feathers actually burned out. But it sounded right, and what mattered was reminding The Demon of why they hadn't killed the Angel already. There was still more value that could be wrung out of the Angel, but only if The Demon managed to control itself. The Angel would die soon enough.

The Demon looked over at Harrow with the intention of making a retort, at which time the Angel raised a hand and touched the Demon's head as if to smite it. The Demon pulled the Angel off the wall, slammed it back again, further cracking the plaster and sending another shower of dust cascading from ceiling to floor, then it threw the Angel across the room. The Angel hit the concrete with a thud that was sickening even to Harrow's ears, and then rolled until it bumped into one of the legs of Harrow's table, where it came to a stop. The Demon stood growling wordlessly and glaring at the prone Angel for a number of seconds before managing to regain enough control to speak.

"You can't smite _me_, Fallen Seraph. You haven't got the strength left."

The proof was in the fact that The Demon was still alive, yet Harrow heard its fear beneath the contempt and rage. It had believed, just for a split-second, that the Angel would destroy it, even despite the Angel's weakness and the carefully drawn anti-Angel warding all over the room.

Unable to resist the impulse, The Demon went and gave the Angel a sound kick to the midsection. It succeeded in eliciting a coughing moan from the Angel, which appeared to satisfy it, for it stalked away with nothing more than another growl of loathing.

Harrow watched The Demon go, annoyed that the Angel had put her in the position of stopping The Demon from doing what it wanted. It would be harder to get along with than ever now, because it had been thwarted from enacting its desires.

When she turned back, she was surprised to find that the Angel had not only righted itself using her table for support, it had closed the distance between her and itself. With two fingers of its right hand, it reached for her forehead. Anticipating that it was going to knock her unconscious, Harrow all but shouted the beginning words of her spell right in its face. The Angel cringed, yet still managed to tap her head before it dropped to the floor with a scream, the shadow of its wings blooming at its back.

Harrow continued the spell in a calmer voice, though inwardly she was shaken. The Angel had come so close, so _very_ close. If it had been the slightest bit stronger, it could have killed her, could've killed The Demon too. She had underestimated it. That must _never_ happen again.

The Angel thrashed ineffectually on the floor, but through its incoherent screams of pain, Harrow heard words issued brokenly one at a time, four words that collectively chilled her to the bone because she knew what they had meant when she spoke them, but did not now know why the Angel should have been driven to repeat them, _"It wasn't for nothing."_

Harrow didn't know why, but that sounded like a threat, and a warning.

She decided that it was urgent that she refresh the warding before the Angel recovered from the spell inasmuch as it was able. For a split-second, she considered retrieving the Angel's Blade and killing it with that directly and immediately, but she was stopped by the sight of the Angel's shed feathers.

Avarice clouded her judgment, and she remembered that The Demon had said only that the Angel must be dead by Christmas. She could get a lot more feathers out of it before then.

Putting thoughts of slaying the Angel out of her mind, she stepped over its now unconscious form and bent to retrieve the feathers, which she then stuck into a mason jar she had brought for the purpose. Angel feathers were surprisingly strong, and required no special handling or storage container that she knew of. She figured she could probably just leave them loose in the trunk of her car if she wanted to, it was just that the mason jar was a lot more convenient than managing uncontained handfuls of them.

Halfway through, Harrow paused and looked at the blood on the enormous primary feather she'd just picked up. It was one of the only feathers of its size that she'd gotten, and would have to be considerably bent to make it fit in the jar.

The blood had stained her hand, the floor, and the wall where the Demon had thrown the Angel. Much of the blood had escaped down the drain in the middle of the room. It was warm on her hand, and she could sense the power in it, much greater than the blood of mere mortals, though human blood was one of the more powerful spell ingredients commonly used in magic. The feather itself made her skin tingle a bit, as she sensed the magic radiating from its interlocked barbs. Unbidden, the thought crossed her mind that these were holy things, and they should not be spilled and torn away so casually.

Ruthlessly, she blinked and shook herself, dismissing the annoying thought.

In future, she decided, she must establish a means of actually collecting the blood instead of letting it go. Angel blood wasn't in as high demand as the feathers, but it was still worth a tidy sum. To let it go down the drain was wasteful. And having it mixed with the feathers was a damned nuisance she didn't need either. She needed some way of conveniently keeping the two things separate.

Nobody wanted Angel blood in a spell that didn't call for it, not unless they wanted to risk backfire.

When she was done collecting the bloody feathers, Harrow screwed the lid onto the jar and set it on the table, then undertook the strenuous task of relocating the Angel. She didn't like it near the edge of the room, she wanted it in the middle, where all of the warding would be at its fullest effect.

She also resolved to get a padlock to reattach the chain to the ring-bolt. Spent and oppressed by the warding as it was, the Angel seemed to have been unable to break the chain on its own. Even so, Harrow had also decided to add back some of the symbols she'd scratched out before.

She was beginning to agree with The Demon that this Angel needed to die sooner rather than later, but only a little because it belonged to the Winchesters. She was coming to understand that this Angel was _always_ able to do something, that she could never safely keep it, because it would never stop biding its time, waiting for its opportunity to destroy her and The Demon.

Even without any strength of its own to speak of, it had used The Demon's weakness of character -and Harrow's distraction- to come within a hair's breadth of killing them both. She remembered what The Demon had said, that not even Heaven itself could keep this Angel bound for long.

If Harrow had only known that neither escape nor killing was what Castiel had been trying to do, had she but known he had in fact done precisely what he intended, she would have been more afraid. She did not know the Winchesters were already attempting to hunt her down, didn't know how close they already were to finding her, didn't know that the Angel had a plan underway to assist them, didn't know that she _should_ have been more afraid of them than she was. Much more.

Yet even in her ignorance, the Angel's words came back and seemed to both haunt and mock her.

_It wasn't for nothing._


	15. To Hear an Angel

_To hear an angel voice/through the chaos and the noise/  
I need a midnight clear/a little peace right here/  
To end this crazy day with a silent night.  
_**-I Need a Silent Night** _**(Amy Grant)**_

* * *

They had split up and spent the rest of the day making inquiries after Lisa Harrow in their various ways. While the boys went the more professional route, Mary went talking to the neighbors, claiming to be a long-distance friend who'd stopped by unannounced on her way to visit relatives for the holidays. The tactic proved to be a largely unsuccessful one.

For example, the woman living across the street from Lisa Harrow, her hair disarranged and a pair of kids running around her house screaming, said of Harrow, "I can't believe that bitch has any friends," then she'd looked a little apologetic and added, "No offense."

"Lisa can be a bit trying at times," Mary had replied dismissively, "But she and I go so far back we might as well be family, and you don't get to choose that."

The woman had given Mary a dead-eyed look as one of the kids started to squeal at the other, "Sorry, I can't tell you where she is. I make it a point not to look over there. I don't know what's done in that house, but I've heard it sometimes, and if I didn't know better, I'd say some sort of Satanic worship was going on inside those walls. Damned creepy stuff."

"Thanks anyway," Mary had replied, stepping off the porch as the woman closed the door.

The rest of the neighbors, those of them that were at home, were no more enlightening. Lisa Harrow was not well-liked, and even the local gossips avoided talking about her, though they were happy to tell Mary about Ted Groves down the street who was probably a CIA agent, and Rhonda Barrow who was almost undoubtedly in witness protection and was also sleeping with her gardener. Mary didn't care about Groves or Barrow, would have remained stoically uninterested even if the local gossips had claimed that Groves was secretly a werewolf and Barrow's gardener was actually a ghost. Right now, the only names that interested her were Lisa Harrow and Castiel.

Quietly sending a message to her contact with the British Men of Letters, she'd gotten the text version of a shoulder shrug that she couldn't help but feel was actually the emoji of indifference. Though it was clear Angels weren't on the hit list for the Men of Letters, it was equally evident to Mary that they were not considered allies either. The only reason the Men of Letters had ever responded to Castiel at all was because he was a link to the Winchester brothers, who were legends even to them.

Now they had Mary's attention, it struck her as seemingly unlikely that they would take any further notice of Castiel, particularly as things had gotten a little strained since the job involving the Prince of Hell. Mary had not told them that the one of her boys which had been so nearly killed was not, in fact, either of her sons, but she suspected they knew anyway, and were inclined to blame the Angel for Mary being harder to get along with of late. Which really wasn't fair to Castiel, who knew nothing of the British Men of Letters' involvement in that Demon-hunting fiasco.

In any case, they were no help at all. They didn't know anything about any Lisa Harrow.

Politely, they offered to help hunt for her missing Angel, but Mary advised against it, knowing how Dean and Sam would feel if they found out she was working with the British Men of Letters. Besides, she suspected the offer had been nothing more than British etiquette. They didn't really want to expend resources hunting for a wayward Angel, they didn't see the point. They didn't understand what Castiel was to Sam and Dean... and to Mary as well. Didn't understand, and didn't care to find out. They could hardly be blamed for that, because Castiel had almost had to die in order for Mary to begin really understanding it herself.

Around dinnertime, Mary regrouped with her boys at a hamburger joint they'd taken note of earlier, and they did their collective best to ignore the obligatory crappy Christmas music, comically stupid-looking elf and reindeer garb of the staff and sickeningly cutesy holiday names for the menu items.

Sam and Dean were in their FBI suits, but looked no more cheerful than they had when Mary had split from them earlier. Dean in particular looked worn and downcast, though he was trying to conceal it.

Even if not for whatever unnatural link had given her boy access to experience the fear of the Angel, the fact would have remained that Castiel was undeniably Dean's best friend, and frequently his staunchest supporter (even when Dean didn't want him to be), though Sam might have wrestled the Angel for the title when things started getting really tense. But what could not be argued was the fact that Dean was more closely bonded to Castiel than any of them; feelings that went all the way back to his time in the literal pits of Hell and which ran almost as deep as the fires of damnation burned.

Sam and Mary relayed their mutual lack of success to each other, while Dean silently brooded.

Despite being their natural ringleader, he seemed to feel no need to participate in the conversation or to encourage them to make plans for what to do next. The only thing he suggested was a motel he and Sam had passed earlier. Mary couldn't think of any reason to object, though she almost wanted to just to get something more out of Dean than vague staring and the occasional noncommittal grunt.

Even their pretty waitress (who managed to look cute despite the idiotic light-up reindeer antlers she was presumably being forced to wear) couldn't get a smile out of him, though she tried. She clearly found him appealing. His lack of response caused concerned looks to be exchanged between Sam and Mary. It had taken no time at all for Mary to realize that there wasn't a reasonably attractive woman above the age of twenty that Dean didn't at least have eyes for, even if he was too busy on a job to do anything more than look. Yet even given what she had come to know about Dean, Mary didn't feel half so worried about his lack of response to the waitress as Sam looked.

Mary could almost feel the story Sam hadn't told her when they exchanged glances, a story that seemingly informed Sam that his brother's mental landscape was well and truly becoming a shambles.

But she didn't ask. Now wasn't the time. Later, perhaps.

* * *

For most of the night, Dean's dreams were untroubled (or as untroubled as they ever were), but his subconscious was made anxious by the quiet, especially after the several fits he'd had off and on throughout the unproductive day, and he repeatedly woke up specifically because his dreams were too peaceful and he just couldn't take it.

But one of the times he thought he woke up, Dean opened his eyes and found himself staring at a cracked and bloodstained wall. After a moment, he realized he was lying on his side on concrete.

After the passage of a few more heartbeats, Dean decided this was the self-same room he'd dreamed of the night before. Slowly, he sat up and looked around. There was blood everywhere, more blood -he knew from experience- than could be found in a single human body. The room was drenched in it, it had dried in streaks on the floor, darkened into patterns that resembled a Rorschach test on the wall.

Sensing something behind him, Dean whipped his head around and caught a glimpse of someone, he thought it was Castiel, but it was so fast he couldn't be sure. He had the impression of blue eyes, full of fear, and a bloodied countenance, but a hand came quickly to his head, touched him and sent his consciousness spinning away into a disorienting sea of unrelated images.

A ridiculously lumpy, cracked and pothole filled road. A mason jar full of blood. Small businesses whose names were written using some sort of Chinese characters Dean couldn't begin to guess the meanings of. A pair of disembodied Demon eyes. Some sort of building for dyslexics whose sign was nearly impossible to read because of the font. The silver Mazda was the first thing Dean recognized.

Sounds echoed as if in a hallow chamber. The sound of a train running on tracks. The voice of the witch reading Latin. A slamming door. A metal lid being screwed onto the top of a glass jar, but instead of being coupled with the view of the mason jar, it was paired with the Mazda. A demonic roar of rage accompanied the unrolling of the abysmally maintained road.

The images and sounds came faster, in greater variety, trying to order and make sense of themselves with what Dean could only see as frantic energy. In spite of himself, he was scared, and wanted it to stop, though he was sure the dream was Castiel's doing, that the Angel was trying his best to show Dean something important, but that either the warding or Cass's condition was making it difficult.

"Cass, slow down. You're goin' too fast," Dean called out, but he didn't hear his own voice and couldn't be sure if Castiel could hear him either, "Take a breath and slow the hell down."

Instead of slowing down, the images only became indistinct, blurry. They came just as fast, hit harder, and overlapped in ways that were increasingly difficult for the human mind to take in. In addition to buildings, streets and signage, the sky and stars began to get in on the action, looking vibrantly real and yet impossibly soaked in blood. For a moment, Dean caught a glimpse of the light that sometimes shone in the eyes of Angels when they used their abilities. Then blackness.

Silence. Stillness. Nothing.

As if all of creation had spontaneously ceased to exist.

"Cass?" Dean asked, but didn't hear himself, couldn't see himself, couldn't even sense his body, and that all kind of freaked him out, but he went on in as gentle a voice as he could summon, though he was fairly certain that he would've sounded angry if he could've heard himself, "Cass, this is _not_ helpful, buddy. I know you're trying. But... man... you gotta try just a little harder, cause this don't make a lick of sense. You understand, Castiel? I'm tryin', man, but I don't know what you're telling me."

The nothing persisted, and Dean began to wonder if Cass had done all that he could. The chaos of imagery and sound had told Dean more than he wanted to know about Cass's mental condition. He could no longer kid himself that it was just interference from the warding. This dream had been nothing like the last one, and it spoke of rapidly failing mental processes. The information had been disjointed, the details either nonexistent or else presented with all the forceful impact of a shotgun blast at close range.

Gradually, stars appeared in the darkness. No, not stars, just points of light. One at a time, they manifested. Slowly, they became fixed points on a map. One of them flashed, and Dean realized it was the spot on I-35 where they'd picked up Castiel's truck. Another flickered, and he recognized the street Lisa Harrow's ID said she lived on. Several more points flashed, but he didn't know those locations.

Then, gradually, all the lights faded. All except one. It marked a point on a street outside the city limits to the north, a long way from Lisa Harrow's home relatively speaking, but close to where she'd found Castiel. Hell, they'd been within six miles of the place today and hadn't even known it.

Because he'd driven the area just today, Dean realized that several of the sounds and images which had come to him earlier were attempts to describe the map he'd just been shown. On the most direct route to Lisa Harrow's house was Austin's Chinatown, and there was a train track between where Cass had been taken and what he seemed to be signaling as his present location. A lot of what Dean had been shown wasn't clear to him, but he figured that he'd understood enough to get him where he needed to go.

"Okay," Dean said, once he was sure he'd memorized the street as well as was possible in a dream, "Alright. We're comin', Cass. Just... hang in there a little longer, okay? We're coming for you."

Slowly, the map faded out. After pulsing twice, the light also faded.

Darkness reigned once more.

With a gasp, Dean woke and sat up in bed. He looked over at Sam, who was still asleep. He hated to wake his brother for the second night in a row, but he sensed that Cass was running out of time. Underneath every second of the dream had run a current of exhausted terror and fevered hurt that made the impressions he'd gotten out of last night's dream seem like a dress rehearsal for the real thing.

"Sam," Dean's voice was thick with sleep, so he cleared his throat and spoke more sharply, "Sammy! Hey, wake up!"

"Uh, what?" Sam's eyes snapped open and he instinctively looked for some sort of danger in the room with them, his alarm turning to baffled annoyance when he saw nothing.

"I know where Cass is. Get dressed," Dean said, getting up and heading to the bathroom.

"What about Mom?" Sam asked blearily, rolling onto his back.

"Send her a text," Dean tossed over his shoulder.

Not awake enough to figure it out on his own, Sam called, "Wait, how do you know where Cass is?"

"He told me," Dean replied.

Sam had sat up now, but his confusion seemed to be deepened by the answer, "Why didn't he tell you before?"

"Dunno," Dean told him, adding dismissively, "When we find him, you can ask him."

A few minutes later, they had piled into the Impala, with Dean at the wheel. Mom had gotten Sam's text and had already been outside waiting by the time the brothers exited their room. Nobody spoke as they exited the parking lot, but once they were on the road, Sam and Mom had questions about what -exactly- Cass had told Dean. He relayed such images as he could recall, and both his relatives got stuck on one which was of particular note to all three of them.

"Demon eyes?" Mom said when Dean described them.

"You think we've got a Demon as well as a witch?" Sam wondered.

"You called it from the start," Dean reminded him.

"I don't like it," Sam decided with a scowl.

"Yeah, neither do I," Dean agreed rather sourly, glaring at the road ahead as though it had personally offended him, "But I'm mostly just gettin' tired of all these damn people and things tryin' to bump off Angels, especially _our_ Angel. You think he's got a target painted on those wings of his, somethin' that says to every Hellspawn, lunatic and monster out there 'Hey, come kill me; it'll be fun, I promise?'"

"He does seem to have trouble catching a break," Sam admitted reluctantly.

"We should figure out how to send some kinda mass message to all the would-be Angel killers out there," Dean suggested, "Somethin' that says, 'Please, for the love of whatever you worship and wherever it is you go after you die, _stop_ killing Angels. Especially ours, because we will hunt you down and burn you and everything you love to the ground if you kill him _again_.'"

"We could always put that up on a billboard and hope someone sees it," Sam remarked dryly, "But I don't think anyone actually reads those."

Of course, neither of them were thinking about signs and they both knew it, knew they were just clumsily trying to distract themselves from whatever was waiting for them out there in the night.

It wasn't working.


	16. Now You're All Gonna Die

_And the bullets are flying, the body count's rising/  
And everyone's dyin' to know, oh Santa, why?  
_**-The Night Santa Went Crazy**_** (Weird Al)**_

* * *

The farmhouse looked innocent enough, softly pale yellow with white trim and a slate-colored roof. Multiple tall windows with light curtains hung inside for every room. But Sam remembered all-too well the interior of Lisa Harrow's house, and he regarded those curtains on the upper floor with profound wariness. Mom and Dean seemed more relaxed about it than he was, probably because they hadn't been upstairs in the other place, and didn't know what it had been like.

However, they all noted the suspicious state of the Christmas decorations. Unlike at Harrow's house, there actually _were_ decorations, most of which had religious significance. There was a nativity scene, but the baby Jesus was missing, and all the other figures had repulsive expressions drawn on them with some kind of black marker. A big plastic donkey had been planted atop the manger. There wasn't an Angel either, and someone had broken off all the points of the star attached to the model stable.

There was an actual barn off to the right of the house, to the front of which had been nailed strings of Christmas lights. Sam realized they had not been hung at random, but actually spelled out 'Hell's Bells.' Which seemed to not only confirm the presence of a Demon, but also struck Sam as tacky, though it was surpassed in sheer tackiness by the pair of Christmas light reindeer mounting each other just beyond the steps of the wrap around porch of the farmhouse itself. The décor was more juvenile than horrifying, but Sam had long ago learned that Demons with a childish sense of humor were frequently the most abhorrent of the damned to actually deal with.

Collectively, the Winchesters had exited the Impala some distance back from the house, not wanting the noise of the vehicle to draw attention. On the chill air of the early, predawn December morning, they could all smell the acrid tang of death. A brief investigation by Dean revealed that there were dead and rotting animals out in the fields on either side of the rutted dirt driveway.

By the evidence, the owner of the property had kept a couple of cows, horses and a flock of chickens, all of which (as well as any wildlife that had made the mistake of venturing onto the property) had been brutally slain and mutilated, then left out in the fields to rot away from prying eyes. If any of the Winchesters had still doubted that a Demon had possessed the home owner or else murdered them and set up shop here, sating its violent urges on animals to avoid revealing itself by gutting people, that doubt was completely erased.

They approached the farmhouse steadily but cautiously, noticing as they did so that the smell of dead animals rapidly faded into the background, and they probably would not have noticed at all if they'd driven up to the farmhouse in a closed vehicle instead of approaching on foot.

Mom broke off to investigate the barn, but shortly returned with a shake of her head, indicating nothing of interest lay in that direction. Once on the porch, Sam and Mom peeled off to either side of the door while Dean tested it, avoiding touching the brown and dead wreath hung over the peephole with care.

It didn't surprise anyone that the door was unlocked. What need had a Demon for mere locks on a door? Any ordinary human stood no chance against a Demon, and any Hunter would not be thwarted by a lock for more than a moment, not long enough to be worth the bother of engaging it.

The foyer was clear, slightly dusty, which indicated that the family had been dead long before the yuletide season, meaning The Demon had done that decorating on its own, presumably for the giggles.

The Demon was clearly prepared for the possibility that some wayward door-to-door salesman or someone with a broken down car or something might show up unexpectedly in such a manner that made it an inconvenience to kill them, and it wanted to be able to open the door without alarming anyone, so it hadn't left any bodies in the foyer.

Once inside, however, the smell hit them almost immediately. Mom put a hand to her nose reflexively, and Sam gagged on the stench. Dean muffled a cough. They had to stand for a moment to steel themselves against the odor before continuing on into the house.

Through a swinging door to the kitchen, they found the first of the bodies they knew were there. It was a teenage boy, laid upon the island counter in the middle of the kitchen, a cleaver stuck in his chest. The blood had spread across his body, over the counter and dripped to the floor, though now it was dried and black. His face was blotchy and his features distorted. The smell now they were closer was unbearable and Sam backed out of the kitchen to avoid retching.

Because it was indoors, most carrion-eating wildlife couldn't get in, though it certainly smelled like something had been using the kitchen for a toilet, possibly a feral cat or a raccoon or some other creature that was probably dead outside now for daring to enter the abode of a Demon.

Every human instinct Sam had told him to run, to get out now while he still could. The instincts of the Hunter said that this was the work of a Demon. It wasn't uncommon for Demons to slay the families of the people they possessed, usually unnecessarily violently.

The kitchen opened out into a dining area that then rejoined the main hall. Dean went through there, cautiously edging around the island counter, while Mom and Sam went back. Mom split off to the living room, while Sam took the stairs again.

Unlike Lisa Harrow's house, this was a very ordinary looking home, with normal family photos on the walls, the appropriate number of completely non-suggestive knickknacks on the available flat surfaces, and table lamps that didn't immediately make Sam think of Dean's porn collection. Somehow, the normalcy that had once filled this house only served to make it feel more perverted.

There had been an normal family here once, people just living their normal lives. Then a Demon and a witch had come, taken that from them, and made this place into a house of death and murder.

In the upstairs bedrooms, Sam found the wife and daughter of the man the Demon had possessed, and saw it had satisfied more than just its lust for violence before it killed them.

* * *

The Demon regarded Castiel with a kind of vicious curiosity.

He knew he had angered it earlier, understood that the sudden release of all its pent up rage when it had attacked him had generated a fixation. It was hungry for violence, starved for death, he could see it in The Demon's eyes. The majority of Hellspawn fed on pain and suffering, and it was difficult for them to suppress their desires for long. This Demon had likely last sated its taste for death on whatever family the man it was wearing had, and it had since likely restrained itself.

Besides that of course, Demons were built for the express purpose of making war with Angels. The Demon undoubtedly hated Castiel as much as he despised it.

"Harrow thinks we should give you another day," the Demon was saying, "But her greed and ignorance blind her. I know you, Fallen Seraph, though you would not know me. I can hear it when you scream, that certain... absence of despair. You're just waiting to do what it is that you do best."

Castiel had no idea what The Demon was on about. What he did know was that at this point The Demon's killing him would come as a welcome relief. So he simply lay where he was and stared impassively at The Demon, knowing his lack of response would only egg it on.

"What a puzzling creature you are," it purred, "One of the only Angels to storm the very gates of Hell, and steal a soul which was ours by ancient right," the Demon's face twitched, as though it was trying to decide whether it should smile or laugh or both, and instead it merely grimaced, "But not soon enough to prevent the Apocalypse. From what I've heard about you, that's been the hallmark of your entire your sordid career. Never quite fast enough. Never quite strong enough."

It seemed The Demon really _did_ know who he was, at least enough to know he had been one of the few who had been at the epicenter of the Apocalypse.

"And now look at you, an exceptionally pathetic specimen of Angel-kind," the Demon scoffed, "I mean, what other Angel would have stumbled into that witch's trap? Hell, are any of them even on Earth, or remotely interested in humans anymore? Is even one Angel up there bothering to listen to prayer? Why? They haven't got any wings, their organization is shot- oh, and their numbers drop every time they come to Earth, usually because _you_ skewer them."

Castiel was too tired for this. Couldn't think clearly. Didn't dare respond. The Demon was purposely tormenting him, intentionally clawing at his emotions before it tore him apart.

"Ever since I first went solo," The Demon continued, "I've always done my research. And I've found that the most dangerous Demon Hunters of them all were the mighty Winchesters, the ones who kickstarted the Apocalypse and saw to the release of Lucifer himself, then shoved him back in the box, not to be released again until The Darkness descended upon the Earth like a plague. And I wondered how they managed all that. 'Well obviously,' I thought, 'It must have something to do with their pet Angel.' So I learned your name, Castiel. Burned it into my memory, and scoured Hell and Earth for anyone who knew about you. And do you know what I found?"

It loved the sound of its own voice, but seemed to enjoy its dramatic pauses even more. Castiel found it a bit tedious, because he already knew the answer to The Demon's question. Still, it hit like a hammer.

"What I found was... an _unmitigated_ failure. You are... without a doubt, the _worst_ Angel to have ever existed. You _do_ know that, right? Lucifer may have spent eons locked in a cage, but at least in his brief moments of freedom he actually did _something_. You... what is it you've done again?"

The Demon began to shiver with delight, barely able to contain its glee. It hadn't gotten to do any torturing for awhile, and was obviously having a great time.

"And this is the funniest part," the Demon went on, uninterested in what Castiel's answer might be, "You claim that everything you've ever done is for the Greater Good. But with a little bit of extra soul juice... you _laid waste to Heaven!_" it was so delighted by this particular bit that it laughed.

Let the damned thing talk. Its fate was already sealed. It could kill him when it was done storytelling and cackling, but that wouldn't change the fact that the Winchesters knew where it was now, were coming for it. Its days weren't merely numbered; its time could probably be counted in minutes.

When it recovered sufficiently from its fit of mirth to speak again, the Demon continued from where it had left off, "And I thought to myself, 'Just what in the Hell greater objective good is there than working for Heaven?' At first I couldn't figure it out. Looking at your recent history, it seems that you simply flutter about randomly, sewing chaos and death, like the proverbial butterfly ignorantly creating hurricanes on the other side of the world. Without pattern, without purpose, without meaning..."

The words were getting to him. They were digging into his consciousness, tugging at his tenuous grasp on self-control, fine tuning the dread that had kept an increasingly painful grip on him since the first time the witch worked her spell. He clenched his jaw, and held his silence.

Even though Castiel was facing a wall and not The Demon, he could feel it when The Demon smiled, the lash of cruel energy the action generated.

"But we all know Angels just don't _do_ that sort of thing, not those feathery bastards with the Holier Than Thou sticks up their asses; that's _our_ schtick, Demon stuff. Angels are all about order and restraint. So I dug a little deeper, and when I did I realized that you're _not_ an Angel at all," its tone grew harsh and cold as ice, "You, Fallen Seraph, are nothing but a whore for the supernatural," its smile was as cold as its voice as it added, "and a cheap one at that."

* * *

There was a recent add-on to the back of the farmhouse, which they hadn't seen when approaching the front, but which Dean found the door to underneath the stairs just outside the dining room. He at first thought it was a door to the cellar or basement, since that's what under-the-stair doors were usually for, but when he opened it he was confronted with a narrow hallway, which turned out to be the short part of an L-shape. Dean traversed the hallway in silence, half expecting something to come bounding out of the walls at him even though there weren't any ghosts involved that he knew about. But the hallway was claustrophobic even for someone who didn't have a problem with tight spaces, narrow and low-ceilinged and papered with dizzying dusty rose floral and stripe print.

Since it clashed with the overall more relaxed and pleasing aesthetic of the house, and it looked nothing like the "style" Lisa Harrow had in her abode, Dean presumed that this was the Demon's handiwork. He'd always suspected there was something slightly twisted and evil about this sort of wallpaper.

Around the corner, there was a step down off the foundation and the hallway widened out considerably. One wall followed the back of the house, the other was lined with doors spaced at regular intervals which made him think of some kind of asylum. For a moment, he imagined that there was a patient and prisoner behind every closed door, but he shook off the mental image quickly. He had considerable reason to believe there was only one prisoner here.

With so many rooms to check, however, Dean had just about decided to wait for Mom to catch up with him when he heard a crash behind the door almost directly in front of him which was accompanied by the metallic rattle and snap of what sounded like chain, followed by a very organic sounding thud.

Dean went to the door and paused to listen. He heard a voice on the other side that was almost assuredly The Demon. Humans couldn't actually _hear_ the demonic sound of a person possessed, but it was amazing how easy it was to detect the pure evil and hateful malice in the voice once you suspected someone might be a Demon, how clearly you could feel the wicked presence seething in the air.

Slowly, Dean reached for the handle, turned it and eased the door open.

"What all have you had up inside that slutty celestial being of yours?" The Demon was asking, "Leviathans? That special personal Hellfire Lucifer cooked up for Sam Winchester? Lucifer Himself? Hell, even the King of Hell got in on the action for a hot minute, didn't he?"

The Demon stood with its back to the door, facing the wall, pinning whom it addressed with one hand, and holding an Angel Blade in the other. It glanced at the Blade it was holding, grinned malevolently, obviously enjoying some privately held vision of obscenity.

"Hell, I half want to try you out," The Demon said, "See what it's like to ride an Angel," it sighed regretfully and raised the Blade, "But that look you're giving me tells me you've got some kind of plan for taking me out. And I think I should take you out before you have the chance to implement it."

"Too late, you damn son-of-a-bitch," Dean announced.

The Demon turned, and there was frightened recognition in its gaze. Before Dean could get his gun -loaded with Devil's Trap bullets- up however, The Demon caught him and threw him across the room. He slammed into the wall, black spots exploding in his vision.

"I _was_ just going to kill the Angel," The Demon told him, "But I'll take a Winchester too," it laughed with fiendish delight, adding, "I've always liked a good bargain."


	17. Tonight We Pray

_There's so much sorrow/It's way too late to say/  
I'll cry tomorrow/Each of us must find our truth.  
_**-Thankful**_** (Josh Groban)**_

* * *

Mary heard the crash, followed by a yell she was sure came from Dean, which was then followed by another crash. Abandoning her approach to what she presumed was a study connecting to the living room, Mary retraced her steps to where she'd last seen Dean.

It took her only a few moments to find the door under the stairs, which had been closed earlier but now stood open, telling her that Dean must have gone that way. She headed into the narrow hall beyond, and it wasn't long before she could hear the sound of an unfamiliar voice. Soon she could understand what it was saying, or the words themselves anyway. What it meant by them was another matter.

"Dean Winchester, as I don't live and breathe," the voice was saying, "What a surprise. I was just explaining to our mutual acquaintance what I've learned about him. I said he wasn't an Angel, but that was maybe a bit of a lie. No, the truth is just that he's not an Angel of _The Lord_. Hasn't been since he dragged your filthy human soul out of the Pit," the voice changed pitch, seemed to be talking to someone else now, "It was right when you killed your first Angel, wasn't it? When you _rebelled_. That's when it happened. When I found that tidbit, it finally hit me, the _real_ reason for everything you've ever done. It wasn't for the Greater Good at all, even if there is such a thing."

Mary was around the corner, approaching a room with a partially open door cautiously, knowing that what lay beyond had senses greater than those of a human, and that she must approach very, very carefully if she didn't want to be noticed. And she _really_ didn't want to be noticed.

"You damn bastard," she heard Dean hiss angrily.

But the owner of the voice ignored him, "See, you're not an Angel of the Lord. Not anymore. Not for years now. No, you're an Angel of _Dean Winchester_. Have been ever since you took Dean away from _us_. You come when _he_ calls. You obey _his_ orders. You have killed thousands of your own in _his_ name, burned and bled and were cursed and died for _him_."

She could see a little through the door now, enough to observe that Dean was on the floor, struggling to get to his feet after being hurled against the wall, looking around for the gun he'd dropped in the process. But she couldn't see the person -Demon- he was addressing because it was deeper in the room, and the wall and angle of the open door combined to block her view.

"And just _how_ has he repaid you for your sacrifice?" Mary could almost hear The Demon's merry smirk, imagine its eyes shining with deranged glee as it went on, "Did he help you when your Grace was stolen, when you became human and every Angel on Earth was hunting you down like the filthy, broken, disgusting creature you are? _No!_ He left you out in the cold, because you were too _inconvenient_ to bother with. And that wasn't even the first time, was it? Oh no, it's a regular pattern with him!"

Mary got around the door, then drew back out of view as The Demon threw up its hands, turned and stalked a few paces away, then whirled back around, its voice loud and almost hysterical with barely suppressed laughter, "They call, and you drop everything. They say 'jump' and you leap straight over the moon, no question asked," it paused, struggling with a fit of giggles, "And in return? You spit up blood in the street and they_ leave you there_. You starve, and they leave you to die. You commit the worst sin imaginable for an Angel, _rebellion_ -your kind's Murder One!- give up everything you've ever known, ever loved, break yourself all to bits just for their benefit. And they thank you by trampling all over the shattered pieces in their rush to save each other."

She winced as she heard the thud of what sounded like a shoe connecting with something much softer, a thud which repeated until Dean abruptly cried out.

"For God's sake, stop it!" The Demon flinched -just that little bit- at the name of the Lord; just as Dean had known it would. And then it turned slowly towards him.

It caught Dean telekinetically and slammed him against the wall, stepping again into Mary's view, but this time with its back to the door, "Why? Don't tell me you didn't enjoy it when _you_ were a Demon."

Mary's felt a shock of horror that froze her where she stood. She didn't want to believe what The Demon had just said. Demons lied. Maybe this one was lying. She found herself praying fervently that it was lying. To her deepening shock, Dean didn't deny what The Demon had said, and Mary knew by the tightening knot in her gut that it was the truth. Dean hadn't merely been to the Pit of Hell, he'd actually been turned into a damned thing, a _Demon_. She couldn't understand how that was possible, and her incomprehension and horror was enough to paralyze her for a moment.

"You remember that, don't you, Seraph?" The Demon's smile broadened as it looked over its shoulder briefly; when it looked back at Dean, its eyes glittered as it savored the next words that spilled in a tone sweet as honey from its lips, "Oh yes, you talked about it didn't you? I've heard the second-hand stories about the way you said you laid into your Angel. According to you, it didn't even _try_ to fight back. Not against _you_. Would barely even defend itself, but you tore into the Angel anyhow, tossed it out of your path and then kept right on going because it was just so damn _satisfying_ to break its face," The Demon looked over its shoulder again - Mary presumed at Castiel, though she could not see him from her position, "But he didn't kill you. And you know why?"

"You damn bastard," Dean, now reduced to repeating himself, managed to choke out, but The Demon had only eyes for Castiel now, though it still held Dean pinned to the wall.

The Demon decided Castiel wasn't going to answer the question, and so answered the question itself, "He said it was because you were like a fly somebody had pulled the wings off of; it was simply too much fun to watch your pathetic struggling, and he didn't want that show to end," the Demon paused, grinning wickedly, "Looking at you now, I can see what he meant."

Mary recovered her nerve, and stepped into the room. But The Demon had apparently sensed her. Even as she entered, she felt the gun rip out of her hands and watched helplessly as it flew across the room and clattered to the floor at Dean's feet. Dean watched the gun, noted where it fell, and looked at his mother. They still had a chance, if he could just get his hands on that gun.

After a beat, she realized that they were not the only ones still in the fight.

Castiel, pale, trembling and bloody, had pushed himself to a sitting position, bracing against the wall. The look in his eyes was one of profound anguish, but above that was the sort of fury Mary had seen when she'd first met him in the Bunker, a look she had felt afraid of even before she knew that the gun she'd been holding at the time would do little more than piss the Angel off... because some part of her had sensed the power, even though she _seemed_ to have been looking at another human being, and hadn't known yet that Angels existed.

Even if she hadn't already known Castiel as well as she did, she knew from that look in his eyes that he was the one who would draw The Demon's attention. He was the one The Demon most hated, and he was the one most prepared to do what it took. Besides which, he was clearly in the worst shape, meaning that as a group they had the best chance of winning if The Demon paid attention to him, and loosened its hold on Dean and Mary.

Painfully, using the wall for support, the Angel struggled to a standing position. There was more than just pain in his eyes, Mary realized. There was also a deep, almost crippling fear. But Castiel knew that he didn't have to win. He just had to push The Demon hard enough to get what he wanted. It could talk all it liked, say anything it wanted about him, just so long as it did what he needed it to do. That was all that mattered. He could push it that far. He could do that much at least.

When he spoke, his voice was steady and low, if uncharacteristically mocking, "A real Demon, with the forces of Hell behind it… it wouldn't need to pawn Angel feathers to get by. And it _certainly_ wouldn't need a weak-willed, unskilled, and extremely foolish child of a witch to do its dirty work for it."

The Demon drew itself to its full height, and Mary watched the hellfire blaze forth, darkening its eyes, flooding them with black fury. The Demon's words might have rung true, but Castiel's -though few- were apparently truer still, and painted a hideous and almost sadly pathetic picture of a creature who had little left save ego and spite.

"You said you came to kill an Angel," Castiel continued to taunt in a low growl, "So do it then. Unless -even armed with a Blade- you're afraid to face this 'pathetic specimen of Angel-kind,'" despite his clear weakness, Castiel still managed to find the strength make his eyes flash with Angelic light, though his wings did not show their intimidating shadow.

_That_ did it!

Its frothing rage getting the better of it, The Demon spun to finish off the Angel, at the same time losing its hold on Mary and Dean, who both fell to the floor. Dean scrambled for Mary's gun, rolling so he could aim at The Demon without bothering to get up even as it closed with the Angel.

A single shot rang out with a deafening roar which echoed throughout the farmhouse.

* * *

"Cass!" Dean was able to see from where he was that he hadn't been fast enough to prevent The Demon from reaching Cass, but both Angel and Demon had dropped at the shot, and he couldn't see to determine the condition of either from where he lay on the floor.

Anger and fear flooded through him, most of the former directed at The Demon, though he had some in reserve for the Angel too. Cass had known exactly what he was doing in provoking that Demon. Knew it would have a shot at killing him before Dean could stop it. But he'd taken that chance, and Dean knew why. As usual, Cass had thrown his welfare aside in favor of protecting the Winchesters, and Dean in particular. He'd done it not to save himself, but to try and save them. The dumb little idiot.

As he got to his feet, Dean's chest ached in that unique Recently Pinned By a Demon way, and he absently rubbed it as he scrambled across the room, staggering slightly as his brain renewed its acquaintance with the oxygen the Demon's power had been withholding from him.

Dean kicked The Demon aside, disappointed but not surprised that it was alive. After all, he'd only hit it with a Devil's Trap bullet. That had the power to stop it, not actually kill it. The Demon could wait. Or Mom could kill it. Right now, Dean didn't really give a damn.

He dropped to his knees beside the collapsed Angel, strangling back the unexpected urge to cry and instead quietly berating the Angel without really meaning or even being particularly aware of what he said, "Dammit, Cass... we came here to save you, you stupid son-of-a-bitch."

Frantically, he felt for the ridiculous excuse for breath Cass produced, then checked for the unnaturally steady heartbeat. A healthy human heartbeat was regarded as being steady, but Dean had discovered long ago that the pulse of a vessel inhabited by an Angel made it seem like even the healthiest humans on the planet had a severe case of arrhythmia.

Dean let out a sigh of relief when he felt the pulse at Castiel's neck, and he sat back to take what seemed like his first deep breath in days, ignoring the bruised feeling in his chest as he did so. Cass wasn't responsive, and that was real bad, but at least he wasn't dead yet, and Dean realized that was more than he'd been expecting, all things considered.

Hearing a noise behind him, Dean turned where he crouched, brought up his gun, and then immediately put it down again as he realized Sam had heard the commotion and come on the run to join the action, if there was any left to be had. Sam stood sort of dumbly in the doorway, taking in the scene. Dean left his brother to put the pieces together for himself, instead focusing on Cass.

Cass's eyes were closed, and Dean wondered if the unnatural paleness of his skin was an affliction of vessel or Angel. He'd been hoping the buckets of spilled blood in his dreams had been an exaggeration, but he saw now that they were not. If anything, there seemed to be more blood than he'd dreamed, splattered across every surface in the room, including some that had somehow -Dean didn't want to know how- gotten onto the ceiling.

Unsure what else to do, Dean ran his hands over the Angel, looking for injuries by touch and feel as if he were inspecting a human. He was almost surprised to find some besides the one The Demon had just inflicted. Cass usually healed his physical injuries in fairly short order. Even struggling under Rowena's spell, and wearing Enochian handcuffs, Cass had found the wherewithal to heal the slashes inflicted by his fellow Angels. But the bullet wounds he'd mentioned to Dean still remained, the one in his shoulder was even oozing a little blood.

But worse by far was the wound The Demon had just put into him. The Blade had dug deep into Cass's shoulder, and slid down along his chest as The Demon fell, burying itself in the space between two ribs. Dean knew that the Blade had to go in deep, and in the right spot, to kill an Angel outright, but it looked to him like this Blade had come pretty damned close to that distance.

"Ouch," Sam remarked, looking over Dean to survey the damage.

It was an idiot remark, but Dean knew that sometimes sounds and words came out without any sense attached. And he wasn't very interested in what Sam had to say just now. Suddenly remembering the warding Cass had mentioned, Dean looked around. If there was warding, it had been hidden behind the gray, which Dean realized was wallpaper and not paint, and that seemed to support the idea that at least some of the warding was in the walls.

"Okay," Dean said quietly, collecting his thoughts and putting a leash on his runaway emotions, "Well first things first. This has got to come out of you."

As gently as he could, Dean took hold of the Angel Blade, and slowly pulled it out, wincing at the Angelic light that flowered around the edges of the wound, suggesting he was doing more harm despite how careful he was trying to be. But at least Cass didn't seem to feel it. That was something. If Cass had been human, Dean would've worried about taking out the Blade, because that would increase the bleeding. But with Angels, blood loss was actually pretty trivial most of the time. Just by being stuck in him, the Angel Blade would continue to do untold damage to Cass. Removing it immediately was the only thing that seemed to make any sense.

"And then it goes into that demonic son-of-a-bitch before he can start talking a lot of crap again," Dean handed the Blade to Sam without actually looking up, gesturing vaguely in the direction of The Demon somewhere behind him.

Sam obediently took the Blade without a word. Dean sighed, relieved that removing the Blade hadn't killed the Angel outright, relieved that the heart continued its supernaturally stable beating. Only after did it occur to him that The Demon had stabbed Cass with his own Blade, which somehow just seemed like adding insult to very possibly fatal injury.

"Dean," Mom's quiet voice made Dean look up, but she wasn't looking at him.

On the floor between them, slick and shimmering, looking almost black in the odd lighting of the room, lay three blood-covered feathers.

Dean closed his eyes, and heard himself involuntarily whisper, "Dammit, Cass."

_Cass, if you never do anything else, just stay alive now. That's the only Christmas gift I need from you. Just don't die on me. Not now. We still need you. A helluva lot more than you realize,_ Dean thought, but had enough self-control not to actually say it aloud, though he wasn't entirely sure if maybe he wasn't actually praying a little bit, hoping Cass might hear him even through unconsciousness.

He didn't know if Cass could hear him, but it felt better to talk to the Angel, even if only in his head. It always had felt better, even in the early days. Sometimes it had felt like Dean had been talking to the empty air, which had made it easier to say the things he needed to say.

Finding out Cass had always heard him even when Dean hadn't realized it in turn made it easier to knowingly talk to the Angel about... well just about anything when Castiel was right in front of him. In some ways, Cass was even easier to talk to than Sam.

It felt _right_ to tell Cass his troubles. It always had, even at those times when Dean was so mad he wanted to wring the Angel's neck... and even though Cass didn't understand most of Dean's problems because they were the sorts of troubles humans had and Angels simply weren't built to understand. It had felt right in part because Cass had always listened, even when he hadn't answered Dean's prayers. Cass's willingness to listen to Dean was what had eventually won them the Apocalypse, and that had been no small thing, though it seemed long ago and far away now.

Aloud, all Dean said was, "Okay, Cass, time for you to not be in here anymore."


	18. Angels in the Night

_Messengers of grace/Messengers of light.  
__**-**_**Angels**_** (Matt Redman)**_

* * *

Dean wanted to go straight home, but Sam convinced him that they should give Castiel a chance to begin recovering before making the long drive north. The motel they were staying in didn't have any other rooms available, so they dropped Cass on what had been Dean's bed and Dean slept on the floor for what little remained of what they were pretending was still night.

Sam tried to sleep, but couldn't.

He kept looking over at Cass in the other bed, worrying about whether or not the Angel was still breathing. He knew that Angels died dramatically, usually flashing with blinding light and burning the shadow of their wings into whatever was behind them when they fell. But Cass was so quiet and still, eyes closed and oblivious to the world, which Sam knew was a bad state for an Angel to be in. He couldn't help but worry. He knew perfectly well that Angels didn't sleep, and even if they were seriously hurt they usually kept their eyes open. Unconsciousness was a profoundly unnatural state for an Angel, even one as different from others of his kind as Cass.

Perhaps selfishly, Sam found himself wondering what might happen to Dean if the Angel died. They had so little and had lost so much, and Dean seldom coped well with loss at the best of times. And Castiel... well Cass wasn't like anyone else, especially not to Dean. Sam had tried, but he'd never been able to entirely fathom the powerful connection between man and Angel, and his own bond with Cass was nowhere near as strong as that which Cass and Dean shared, though he did count the Angel not just as a friend, but as a member of his family.

Even at the start, when Dean had hated and not-so-secretly (at least it hadn't been a secret from Sam) been more than a little afraid of Cass, there had still been something there, a connection that had been forged in the fires of Hell when Castiel first pulled Dean from the torment of the pit, a connection that had only gained depth and complexity over the years.

Sam worried what would become of his brother if the Angel should die.

For no reason Sam could see, Dean had washed the three feathers Cass had shed after they found him, and left them in a row on the nightstand between the beds along with the other feather he'd been carrying around ever since he found it in the Impala.

In the dark, the first feather glowed with light, seemingly possessing an inner fire of its own. But if the other three feathers had any light at all it was drowned out by that of the first feather. It seemed ominous, but Sam didn't actually know _why_ the three feathers didn't glow. Maybe it was the result of their having been ripped out by a spell instead of being shed naturally. Maybe feathers didn't glow in the dark immediately after being shed. Or maybe it was a sign of the health of the Angel at the time it had shed its feathers. The last seemed most likely, but it came with implications Sam feared.

From time to time, unable to stand just lying in bed doing nothing, Sam got up and went to the bathroom, where he'd find himself staring into the mirror -which had candy cane stickers ostentatiously stuck all around it as a festive border- worried and wondering how much farther this could go, how much more they would have to give, how many more friends they would have to bury, how much more they could survive losing. He wondered if there would ever be an end to this road, which had been paved with blood and sacrifice and grief and tears and death. Where was it all headed anyway?

He'd asked the question so many times over the years that he knew better than to expect answers from the man staring back at him in the mirror... or from anyone else for that matter. Even God Himself hadn't been willing -or perhaps able- to tell Sam the answer to that.

Returning to the room, looking at Cass lying partially curled up on his side atop the bedsheets, which Dean had left messy when they had gone out to the farmhouse, Sam also wondered how much more the Angel had left in him. Sam and Dean had been through literal Hell, and everything between there and here, and they were damaged and scarred for it, but still they always came back stronger, smarter, with more experience and knowledge, and more closely bonded as brothers than ever.

The Angel had been there alongside them during the worst days of all, but Cass was undeniably on a downward trend, regardless of how much Sam and Dean tried to deny it to themselves and each other.

Perhaps since before the Fall, but certainly afterword, Castiel's limits had become more marked. He tired more easily, quietly made use of his Angelic powers with decreasing frequency, behaving all the time as though nothing had changed. That had become all the more evident since he'd carried Lucifer, something which Sam had feared might burn him out entirely. Sam knew what it was to have the Devil riding shotgun, though he could not imagine what it must have cost Castiel, who had always practically shuddered in revulsion and poorly concealed fear at the very _name_ of Satan.

Sam and Dean could both be considered damaged, because that's how people got into this life, and this life did still more damage once you were in it, but for them their scars made them strong. For Castiel, each new trauma seemed to take another piece of him, and Sam worried that one day there'd be nothing left of the Angel they knew. And he knew that might be what finally broke Dean.

Much as Dean had loved so many in their surprisingly extended hunter family, there was something deeper than love at work when it came to his attachment to this particular Angel. It was something indefinable, but most assuredly there to be seen and felt by anyone who got close enough.

As Sam watched, Castiel shuddered once, and a feather was suddenly floating down through the air, getting caught in the air conditioner's current, lazily spiraling towards the floor. Sam held out his hand and the feather landed lightly on it. Sam looked at the feather, dark with blood, and acknowledged that the spell might be over, but Cass still seemed to be getting worse.

This was -what?- The fourth or fifth time in the last year that the Angel had not only fought and risked his life, but actually been on the brink of death. One more little push, and Sam felt certain the Angel would go over the edge, and that they might lose him forever.

And, without Cass... Dean might be lost too.

God had spared Castiel before, but He did not seem to be watching now. Would He even care if this sparrow fell once more? When they'd fought the Darkness, especially after she'd torn Lucifer out of Castiel, God had barely looked at or spoken to the Angel whom some called one of His Chosen. Whatever Castiel's life had been worth to God before, it seemed not to have that value anymore.

Out of deference to Dean's earlier demonstrated almost obsessive need to clean the feathers, Sam returned to the bathroom with the one he'd caught and did his best to rinse it off. It was a larger feather, but not huge, possibly a secondary. To Sam's surprise, the shaft of it was split near the end and it was missing almost half its barbs as well as all of the normally very fluffy afterfeather.

Though Cass had shed a lot of feathers from time to time, in the past they had all been intact. This one appeared to have been torn to shreds, as if great claws had raked across it and ripped it out. Going and looking at the other feathers, Sam noted they were in similar condition, though less glaringly so. The feather Dean had found in the Impala was in what Sam had always assumed was good condition.

Sam found himself just staring at the broken feather in his hand, absently brushing its remaining barbs, which were very soft. It struck him oddly, that he'd thought of Castiel as many things over the years, but soft had never been one of those things. Sam had of course held Angel feathers a lot over the years, but he'd never really _thought_ about what they were or where they came from until now.

He felt a little weird about petting the feather when he thought about its source, and decided to put it down with the others. Then he sat on his bed, staring at Cass and wishing there was someone he could pray to for help on the wounded Angel's behalf.

But there was no one out there who would hear him, no one but the two people in this room and the woman in the room next door cared at all whether this particular Angel lived to see the morning. Castiel mattered only to them, to the entire rest of the universe it was all one whether he lived or died. It didn't seem right. After all Cass had done not just for the Winchesters, but humanity, Heaven, even Hell, and the universe itself, it didn't seem right that no one should care if he bled and died.

Sam realized he was more tired than he'd believed to be indulging in these sorts of thoughts. He lay down in bed and tried to go to sleep once more.

This time, finally, he succeeded.

* * *

Dean woke to a sound he'd almost forgotten because he hadn't heard it in so very long. It was a high-pitched whine, quiet at first, but rapidly rising in volume and intensity.

The noise built on itself, driving Dean into wakefulness if not alertness, and he found himself grabbing for his gun and looking for the source, even though a part of him knew what it was, knew that no gun (though it was still loaded with Devil's Trap bullets) would do him one damn bit of good against the increasingly disorienting sound.

Sam was also awake now, scrambling to get up, not recognizing the sound as rapidly as Dean had, also futilely grabbing for a weapon, also looking for the source. The noise built itself enough that the mirror in the bathroom cracked and then made a shattering sound. The lamp on the nightstand flickered on and off wildly, and then the bulb exploded. The window near the door erupted outward in a shower of broken glass. Dean and Sam were forced to cover their ears, deafened and agonized by the sound.

"Cass! Cass, stop it!" Dean shouted over the piercing whine.

The sound was that of an Angel's true voice, shattering glass, relentlessly powering any electronics in the immediate vicinity off and on, and exploding light bulbs. Dean had always been convinced that the sound would turn his brain into a liquid if it wasn't stopped, and now was no exception. Certainly it made ears bleed, and he almost wished for the welcoming darkness of unconsciousness or even death just to escape from it. The sound was _that_ overpowering, engendering fear and awe and blank incomprehension as well as intense pain.

Dean fought his way up onto the bed, where Castiel had thrashed to a sitting position, back pressed against the wall behind as if he were trying to phase through it, palms pressed flat to the mattress on either side, eyes bright with Angelic light but obviously not seeing what was in front of him, screaming for all he was worth, in the process reopening the wound in his shoulder. The bed sheets were soaked red with blood, and tufted remnants of feathers were scattered everywhere.

Grabbing the Angel by the shoulders, Dean shook Cass fiercely, commanding, "Stop it, Cass! Shut up! You're safe now, you hear me? I've got you. You're okay. Just shut the hell up!"

The noise abruptly stopped as though it had been cut off and the bright light in his eyes faded and went out, though Castiel continued to cry out in the voice of his vessel, fighting to escape Dean's grasp, an action that ended up hurling both of them to the floor on the opposite side of the bed from where Dean had started. Sheer panic governed the Angel's action as he threw out a hand to defend himself at what he clearly imagined was an assailant.

Dean was flung back, slammed against the far wall with bruising force, pinned there, the breath knocked out of him. Irrelevantly, he found himself wondering why it felt different to be pinned by an Angel than a Demon, considering that the end result was the same.

Cass sat on the floor, knees drawn up, hand out-flung, looking at Dean as if he were a complete stranger, and a terrifying one at that. He shuddered with either pain or fear, and a couple of blood drenched, downy feathers rippled to the floor.

A banging started up outside the room, and Mom's voice came through the door, "Dean! Sam!"

Cass had sensed her approach, and changed his focus to keeping the door closed against Mom's attempts to shoulder it open. However, the distraction caused him to lose his hold on Dean, who dropped at once to the floor, gasping for the air that had been knocked out of him.

"Easy, Cass," Sam began in reasonable tones, his hands open and lowered in front of him in a pacifying way, "It's us. Sam," he gestured to himself, then to his brother, "Dean. You know us, don't you?"

Rolling his eyes in Sam's direction, Cass' expression seemed to indicate that the sharp claws of terror had dug in so deeply that he was incapable of recognizing anyone or anything as benign. There was a dull flicker of recognition in his gaze, but the fear was too great for him to overcome.

Despite the nearly complete lack of positive response, Sam continued to ease his way cautiously around the end of the bed, every movement slow and smooth, his eyes locked on Cass's, all his focus on not provoking a second attack from the lost and panicky Angel.

Dean was getting his breath back, but he wasn't yet able to speak or get up, so he crouched where he was, trying to cough quietly and not draw attention to himself. He figured that if he started moving around again while Sam was trying to get Cass's attention, the attempt to keep track of the both of them might trigger another defensive reaction from the Angel, and that wouldn't be good for anybody.

"I'm not gonna hurt you," Sam said in the soothing tones one might use to try and quiet a riled up lion, "But I need you to let go of the door. Let it go. Cass, _please_, let us help you."

Castiel blinked at the last sentence. He obviously recognized something about it, or perhaps the tone in which it was delivered. Hesitantly, he lowered the hand which had been telekinetically holding the door closed, and allowed Mom to burst in noisily, in the process breaking the flimsy lock which had been providing the illusion of security.

Mom staggered into the room, looking around frantically for the source of the commotion, but Dean held up a hand to stay her and she stopped, looking worried and perplexed.

Clearly still confused and afraid, Cass looked briefly from Mom to Sam, but then turned to Dean as if for reassurance, though the Angel did not seem to fully recognize him.

Slowly, without standing up, Dean made his way over to Cass. He started to reach towards the trembling Angel, and Cass flinched visibly when he raised his hand, but held eye contact with him. Unwilling to let that daunt him, Dean placed his hand on Cass's shoulder, watching the Angel's face for any signs of regression back into the violent fugue which had possessed him on waking.

"It's okay, buddy," Dean knew it didn't really matter what he said, so long as the Angel heard him and was reassured by the sound of his voice, "We've got you. You're gonna be okay. We're gonna take care of you. You're gonna be fine. I'm here now, buddy."

A soft whimper attempted to escape, but Cass choked it back.

Dean took that as his cue to scoot close enough that he could pull Cass into a hug. After a moment of rigid inaction, Cass responded in kind, though it was more like a shipwrecked man clinging to a single piece of driftwood to avoid drowning as sharks circled below than it was a hug.

"You're gonna be alright," Dean repeated in a quiet voice, which caused the Angel to whimper again, "It's over, buddy. It's over now. We're gonna take you home. You're gonna be okay."

Cass shuddered and clung more tightly with each word, until Dean was half-convinced the Angel was going to crush him; he could feel the turmoil of terror and relief crashing together and coming off Castiel in waves. Cass had never seemed more scared in all the years Dean had known him, making Dean afraid that if he let go the Angel's fear would simply implode in on itself, taking Castiel with it.

Not letting go, Dean looked over his shoulder at Mom and Sam, both standing in silence, then at the bed, covered in rent feathers soaked with blood, wondering if the worst was over or yet to come, wanting to help, but not knowing what to do and so doing nothing.

"It's over now," Dean repeated emphatically, hoping to God he wasn't lying, "You're gonna be okay."


	19. Think Back to When

_I hope there're no ghosts when I dream/  
Telling me to change everything they see/  
Falling back into my memories.  
_**-Nothing for Christmas**_** (New Found Glory)**_

* * *

Mary got takeout from the diner across the street the next morning, and they ate breakfast in the boys' room. Castiel lay on the bed right where Sam and Dean had dropped him after his fit last night, watching them in silence, his expression unreadable. They had pinned a tarp from the trunk of the Impala over the shattered window, and were all quietly pretending not to hear when the breeze rattled it.

"He say anything?" Mary asked as she sat at the table and passed around the food, noting as she did so that both boys snatched their food like starving wild animals, though Dean was markedly the more aggressive of the two.

As there were only two chairs, Dean perched on the edge of the nearest bed with his back to Castiel and balanced his meal on his lap with practiced ease, while Sam took the other chair. Dean looked over his shoulder at the Angel in response to the question, but it was Sam who answered.

"Not a word," Sam told her quietly, glancing briefly at Castiel and then apparently deciding to speak as if the Angel wasn't even in the room, "I haven't seen him like that since Naomi."

"Hey, he didn't try to punch the hell outta me, so I'd say it was at least a little bit different," Dean pointed out, waving a handful of napkins he'd pulled out of his paper bag at Sam.

"I wasn't there for that," Sam retorted, taking the napkins and putting them on the table to be forever after ignored, "I was trying not to get my ass kicked at the time. No, I was talking about earlier."

"When we were trying to save wiener kid Angel?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, him," Sam replied, adding for Mary's benefit (though it was actually no help at all), "That was before we knew Naomi had gotten her claws into Cass."

"Naomi?" Mary inquired.

"Another Angel," Sam explained.

Dean was more emphatic, "A real bitch. Brainwashed Cass and had him spyin' on us."

"Brain melted is more like it," Sam corrected, but Dean did not acknowledge this.

"She even tried to have him kill me," Dean grunted, "That backfired a little bit, didn't it?" he looked at Castiel again, "But she did pull your ass out of Purgatory, so I guess she did one thing right anyway," if he'd been hoping for some sort of response or input from Castiel, Dean was disappointed, for the Angel merely looked at him expressionlessly and said nothing.

"Purgatory?" Mary repeated.

"That's where monsters and idiots who stand too close to expiring Leviathans go," Dean replied, then smiled crookedly despite the haunted look in his eyes that indicated touching on an old wound as he added, "I was one of the idiots. Cass was a few fries short of a happy meal at the time, so of course he was the other idiot. Sammy had the good sense not to get caught in the supernatural black-hole."

Mary noticed a look pass between the brothers, saw that Sam looked down and became preoccupied with staring at his breakfast, but while she expected an accusing look in Dean's eyes to explain Sam's poorly concealed flinch, there didn't seem to be one.

As usual, there was more they weren't telling her.

Because she expected that the boys would clam up and ruthlessly change the subject if she asked about either of them, she instead looked Castiel's way and observed, "He's been through a lot, hasn't he?"

Dean and Sam both looked at Castiel, and Dean answered dryly, "Yeah. Seems to be a side effect of joinin' up with Team Free Will."

Sam rolled his eyes by way of comment, and -in typical fashion- Mary felt that she was being left out of some private joke or conversation that her boys were having right in front of her.

"Seems like somebody's always trying to take what we won that night," Dean said after a moment of silence had passed between them, "Especially from Cass."

Sam shrugged, and concluded, "A free Angel is still a new concept for the universe. Several billion years of habit is hard to break."

Dean looked at Mary as if she needed the clarification on this particular subject, "Before we kicked the Apocalypse's ass, rebellious Angels usually got straightened out or fired in pretty short order."

"Literally," Sam put in.

Dean continued as if his brother hadn't spoken, "Hell, Heaven _tried_ makin' Cass straighten up and fly right. But..." he frowned as he looked for words, then concluded, "It... uh... it didn't stick."

"Good thing too," Sam remarked, "We'd have pretty much been screwed if Cass hadn't switched sides," he sighed, adding, "We were almost screwed anyway."

"It's amazing the difference one well aimed Molotov cocktail can make," Dean said.

Cass did not respond, except to stare at him with the same unsettlingly blank expression he'd had ever since he woke up last night. Dean behaved as if Cass had responded normally, and turned back to the others to continue the conversation. But his eyes were dark with worry.

They all knew what they were doing. Sam and Dean were reminiscing about battles won, about times when things were bleak but they'd gotten through together. They were doing it as if that would build a wall to defend against the bad coming their way, as something of a defiant yell against whatever fate might try to take their Angel from them now. By stating what they'd come through so far, they were indirectly belittling this thing -this sickness and injury- that had hold of their Angel here and now. It was also to reassure themselves of their Angel's toughness, talking about all he'd been through and somehow managed to survive and recover from.

They had many more experiences to draw on than Mary did of course. But still, even knowing the Angel for just a few months, Mary had come to understand several things about him, and she realized that fear they'd seen the night before could not have been all natural, because Castiel didn't fear pain, didn't fear being maimed, didn't fear getting killed. His fears were real and powerful, but they didn't find their source in any of those things. He flinched visibly in face of Dean's anger, but what he feared above all -Mary knew- was that Dean might die. That _any_ of the Winchesters might die, especially if he could have done anything at all to prevent it was apparently more than he could bear, and he was willing to face death and "cosmic consequences" to avoid it. Mary knew this, because she had seen it, and because she felt that same fear for her boys all the time. It was the first thing she'd realized that she and Castiel had in common.

Last night's terror _could not _have come naturally from Castiel. It had to have been artificially induced. Sam himself had -apparently unknowingly- suggested it when he referred to Naomi's brainwashing, which had apparently brought on a notably unnatural fear response so strong that Sam found it memorable even now.

It was then that Mary remembered what she'd read about what made Angels lose feathers, and she realized that the spell hadn't been primarily a physical attack, but a psychological one. The spell's express purpose had been to rapidly bring the Angel to the level of stress that caused feather loss. Castiel was continuing to molt (though last night's cloud of shed feathers was still the most recent) which suggested the spell was still affecting him.

"What's the best way to counteract an ongoing spell?" Mary asked suddenly, and both Sam and Dean stared at her in surprise before quietly looking at each other and avoiding looking at Castiel, then looking back at her and answering almost simultaneously:

"Kill the witch."

Mary nodded thoughtfully, pushing aside the remains of her breakfast, "Then we've got work to do."

* * *

Over the sound of Dean's protests, Mom and Sam collectively decided that he should stay at the motel.

"I hate babysitting," Dean objected.

Sam exhaled sharply and gave his brother a stern rebuke, "Powers or no powers, Cass is _not_ a baby in a trench-coat," he paused before adding thoughtfully, "Not anymore anyway."

"My point exactly," Dean said.

"What?" Mom inquired, but they ignored her.

"Look, someone's got to go through all the traffic cams in the areas around that farmhouse to see if we can spot Harrow... or at least her car. That might as well be you," Sam persisted.

He had a point, but Dean didn't want to admit that.

"Besides," Mom insisted, "Castiel shouldn't be left alone, even if Harrow isn't looking for him. And there's no arguing that he responds best to you, which counts for a lot right now, especially if he has another fit like he did last night."

"He bounced me off the wall, Mom," Dean reminded her sharply.

"And then he let you go, and you talked him down the rest of the way," Mom retorted.

Dean didn't appreciate that Mom had a point and Sam had a point and the only point Dean had was that he didn't want to stay here, sitting helplessly while his best friend deteriorated in front of him. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he acknowledged that he was being damned selfish.

"Okay. _Go_. Find the witch," he addressed his final comment to Sam, looking his brother straight in the eye, "Give her a bullet for me, okay, Sam?"

"Okay," Sam nodded.

After they left, Dean sat at the table with his laptop. Technically, he was reviewing camera footage from the area surrounding the farmhouse, but the street the farmhouse was actually on didn't have a camera, and there were a lot of ways to go from there, and a lot of time to look at, especially since they didn't know if the witch had been at the farmhouse when they had been there, or any time since. It was an enormous -probably futile- task, and Dean's thoughts quickly strayed from it.

When he sat back to take a break, he became aware that Cass was watching him, just as he had been all morning, actually. It dawned on him gradually that Cass looked as if he were afraid Dean might suddenly vanish, lending further weight to Mom and Sam's argument that Dean should stay.

"You forget how to blink?" Dean asked after awhile, hoping Cass would react in some fashion that would let him know the Angel actually understood.

But Cass simply lay there, continued to stare at him with that unsettling intense silence of his. Dean frowned at him for a bit, then he decided to try a different tactic.

"You know what that Demon said to you is complete crap, right?" Dean asked, neither expecting nor receiving an answer from the Angel. He shook his head, continuing after a moment's thought, "I was a mess after Hell. The only thing I even knew how to do anymore was be angry. It was all I had left. Anger. And hate. And fear. That was it, that was all I was, all I knew how to be anymore."

Cass didn't react to this admission, though probably he'd already known. From almost the moment they'd met on Earth, Cass had seen right through him, to how worthless he'd felt, how broken he'd been on the inside. Dean had always wondered if Cass had actually read his mind at the time or if he'd just... known somehow; but he'd never felt like asking, since he wasn't sure he'd like the answer either way.

"I thought you were trying to replace my father, giving me orders and saying I wasn't seeing the big picture, sounding like you wanted to answer every question with 'I'll tell you when you're older'," Dean smiled a little at the recollection, "And that pissed me off. Then you... you told me you _did_ have doubts, that you really weren't told all that much, didn't really know so much more about what was going on than we did. And I thought, 'My god, he's not trying to be my _father_, he's trying to be my _brother_, but the poor holy bastard don't know how.'"

Dean paused reflectively again before continuing, "There's nothin' I don't know about bein' a big brother, tryin' to take care of your kid brother, teach him, protect him... wishing he'd stop asking so damn many questions, that he'd quit trying to lose that innocence of youth so damn quick. And sometimes not knowin' the answers, but feelin' like you should and just getting frustrated and angry and takin' it out on him without meaning it... I knew all about that."

Cass tilted his head just slightly, almost quizzically, proof that he was listening.

"My first thought was 'If even Angels can have doubts, maybe even make mistakes, then maybe we actually have a shot at winning this thing.' My next thought was, 'If even the Heavenly Host doesn't know what it's doing, we are all so far beyond screwed it ain't even funny.' It wasn't until later that it finally hit me: I'd had a friend that whole time, one hadn't asked for and didn't want or know what to do with. I didn't know jack about what to do with this... _thing_ that wasn't my father or my brother… or anything like anybody I'd ever known."

Dean halted, idly poking around on his laptop for a little before speaking again.

Quietly, his voice barely a whisper, he continued, "I'd had an empty space and didn't even know it. And that scared me more than all the rest. To have that kind of connection with something I didn't even understand, didn't know anything about, probably shouldn't trust, wasn't even sure could understand what friendship was... Hell, I wasn't sure _I _knew what friendship was. And, if I didn't, how was an Angel supposed to? I didn't know how to handle it, and I knew I sure as hell wasn't good enough to be friend to an Angel," he hesitated, "I mean, I thought y'all were a bunch of dicks... but you were still freakin' Holy... and goddamned terrifying."

Of course, not as terrifying as the thought of having something else -some_one_ else- that he loved and might lose before all was said and done. That possibility had terrified him most of all, though he suspected that caring so deeply had never really been optional. Something had happened when Castiel dragged Dean's soul from Hell, a bond had been forged then that Dean at least hadn't expected, and that neither he nor Cass had been remotely prepared for.

"'Course, you were really family from the moment you switched to our side, weren't you?" it wasn't actually a question, or if it was Dean already knew the answer, "'Cause when you commit to something, you don't half-ass it. No, it's the whole ass or everybody can just pack up and forget the whole thing. You threw in with us, and you expected to die for it. But you never looked back. Not once. Whenever it came down to us or Heaven... you _always_ stood with us, even when we treated you like crap."

It was difficult to remember that those wide blue eyes staring at him were actually just those of a vessel, not the... well... soul might not have been technically correct but it felt like the right term... he was actually addressing. It was impossible to imagine Cass any other way, but Dean inexplicably felt himself trying to do it, which was a little disconcerting.

He kept talking, "And we _did_ do treat you like crap, I know. And it wasn't fair. It wasn't right."

Cass tilted his head in the opposite direction of before, and Dean had this mental image of a dog watching a hamster run on a wheel, and suspected that perplexed fascination might be about all Cass was getting out of this. But he'd started on the wheel now, and it was too late to stop.

"We didn't know _how_ to have an Angel as part of the family any more than you knew how to be free. I guess maybe we couldn't see a picture bigger than ourselves, and you couldn't see one smaller than the universe, and that made it easier to pretend you didn't need us, that you could do just fine without our help. Made it feel like it was okay for us to just keep looking out for ourselves, leave you to... just deal with whatever the hell you had goin' on."

He knew he technically didn't have to keep talking. Cass never seemed to have any difficulty reading Dean's silences, in fact often seemed to struggle more with his words. There had certainly been times when Deah broke off mid-sentence, and Cass had almost never batted an eye, probably assuming that humans sometimes just stopped talking for no particular reason.

No, Cass deserved more credit than that. He probably knew _exactly_ why Dean sometimes stopped talking right in the middle of a thought.

Dean sighed heavily, "That's given you a damned warped view of what family is, I know it has. I know you think you're this... this _third wheel_, and that's okay somehow, that we'll be fine on our own without you... but it's not true, and it never was. But... as much as we've needed _you_, you've needed _us_, and we weren't there for you like we shoulda been. And I just... I guess what I wanted to say is, don't let what that damned Demon said get to you... the truth is you deserve better than us, better than me. You've _always_ deserved better."

Castiel remained silent, just looking at him with what appeared to be blank -yet untroubled- incomprehension. That was frequently his expression when Dean talked to him, and he'd expected nothing else at the moment. Castiel's listening silence was solid and comforting, and Dean realized it was all that he could ask for right now. In fact, all that really mattered was that he was still here, still alive, still with them.

They could figure out the rest.


	20. The Complicated World We Share

_I've had to wait forever/  
But better late than never.  
_**-She's Right On Time**_** (Billy Joel)**_

* * *

After a largely wasted morning, Sam and Mom stopped for lunch. Sam had recommended not going back to the motel, as they'd have to fight their way free of Dean again, and he might win the argument this time... or at least refuse to lose it. There might also have been just a little bit of self-interest involved on Sam's part. It was rare that Sam had any time with Mom without Dean there.

Admittedly, Sam didn't know what to do with a mother, and it was like wandering through a maze of hidden trip wires linked to explosives around her, but it was also wonderful and endlessly amazing and he couldn't get enough of looking at her, just trying to fully believe she was real and alive and part of his life now, which was something he'd never even dared admit to dreaming about before.

He'd never had a mother, and though it was fraught with complications, he was gladly willing to take every single second he could get, even if it was spent in uncomfortable silence caused by the fact that they were at once closely bonded while at the same time being almost complete strangers. Sitting across the table from a mother who was a total stranger to him was immeasurably better than not having a mother to sit across from at all.

"Cass protected me, you know," Mom said after they'd both been staring and picking at their lunch in mutual silence for awhile, "With Ramiel. I think he knew before we did that Ramiel wasn't just another Demon, that he didn't have a fighting chance, even though we didn't know about the Lance yet. In fact, I think maybe he knew the second he made eye contact that it was a fight he just wasn't going to win," she paused then added, "When the door closed and shut you out and I saw those yellow eyes... I froze. But Cass... he didn't. Even though that Demon had just thrown him across the room like he was nothing, Cass was right back in the fight, didn't back down for so much as a second."

"He never does," Sam replied, "Dean told you about the Archangels, but there've been times since then, more than a few. Cass may not be a servant of Heaven anymore, but there's no doubt in my mind that he still takes the duty of Guardian Angel seriously. He's done things we didn't like, didn't understand, didn't ask for, didn't even _want_... but at the end of the day it was always _for_ us. All of it."

Sam stopped as the full realization struck him. He knew, of course, how much Cass had done for him and Dean over the years, and for sure he'd thought about it before, but it hadn't really struck him until right this second exactly what that all added up to, what it seemed to mean.

He continued after a moment, "And the funny thing is, I don't think it's even a big deal to him. It's just... something he does, without hesitation or reservation... every time."

"He seems pretty loyal," Mom observed.

"Yeah," Sam said, laughing a little at that understatement, "And the thing is... we never did anything to deserve it. Even right at the start, he pulled Dean out of Hell for a purpose Dean refused to fulfill. I mean, there was a reason for that... but, from Cass's perspective, it had been a lot of work, risk... and even loss -more than we realized at the time, actually- for _nothing_."

Sam swallowed hard, looking at his plate for awhile, not losing his train of thought, but misplacing the will to continue. It was the kind of thing he didn't like to think about or remember, and certainly didn't want to tell his mother about. Neither he nor Dean had mentioned his Demon blood addiction, and even though they'd talked about the Apocalypse, they'd carefully skirted around the issue of his saying 'Yes' to Lucifer and spending a year in The Cage with Satan. Sam knew they couldn't avoid it forever... but for now, at least, there was no reason to tell all.

So when he went on, it was to talk about Cass's role in things, "As for me, I was a complete mess when we met. He... uh... he called me an abomination," Sam smiled at that particular memory.

Mom frowned, apparently not finding it very funny that an Angel had been calling her son names. Sam could sort of see why that might be, but it still seemed funny to him. It hadn't at the time, of course. At the time, it had mostly made him angry. Everything about Cass's superior attitude had made him angry, mainly because it emphasized Sam's guilt in his own mind.

Sam's smile faded as he added, "And he was _right_. I was playing right into Lucifer's hands, and Cass knew it. He was _Dean's_ Guardian... but he tried to save me too. He wasn't very good at it, of course... his people skills were terrible. But..." Sam nodded, mostly to himself, "He _tried_. I mean, until he got dragged back to Heaven and they... did whatever it is they used to do when a member of the rank and file started getting out of line. Put him back on course for making us follow the script. But they never could keep control of him, even before he was a Seraph."

Looking away from Mom again, Sam decided not to relate the scariest days in there, when Cass hadn't even been able to look them in the eyes because of what Heaven had put him through, just for having doubts, for showing emotions toward a couple of humans. Cass had never told them the details of what had happened to him while he was gone, but it didn't take a lot of imagination to guess.

"He's been through a lot for us," Sam said after a moment, looking down at his plate, "Not that he's never made mistakes... but he's gone to Hell and back to fix them. It's not always enough... but everything he has is as much as anyone can give, and that includes Angels. Even when it's not enough, at least he _tried_. It's more than most people -or Angels- would do."

It was easier to talk to Mom about Cass than it was to talk about himself or Dean. There was a bit of distance there. Not quite as much distance as discussing the weather, but enough, almost like talking about the family dog or something.

Most other topics of small conversation were closed to them. Mom was trying to integrate with this time, but she'd missed most of the music and movies that Sam loved, and she seemed to have more taste in common with Dean anyway. In fact, Sam wasn't sure he had anything in common with his mother, which hurt to think about. But she was getting to know Cass, and Cass was more than just a friend, he was family, and so talking about him was something that felt more relevant than the weather (or the dog that they didn't have), but still avoided all the things they couldn't -or didn't want to- say.

"You think he's gonna be okay after this?" Mom asked.

Sam wanted to laugh again, but it was a fair question, so he struggled not to, instead saying, "Cass is... he's tough."

"Even toughness has its limits," Mom remarked, leaning her arms on the table in front of her, "And from what I've seen since I've been back, he's been pushed pretty close to them."

"Mom," Sam shook his head, "Cass has been to Hell. He's been to Purgatory. He's been killed _repeatedly_. He's been brainwashed by Heaven and driven completely insane because of the Devil. He was even human once… died as one too. Witch spells that affect Angels..." Sam hesitated, looking for the right words, "They really do a number on him, I'll admit. But if we get the spell stopped, I guarantee Cass'll put himself back together. He always does sooner or later."

Mom sat back and seemed to think it over. Then she started to pull out her wallet, saying, "Then we'd better find this witch and get back home in time for Christmas," she frowned, "Speaking of... what kind of stuff does Cass even like? Materially, I mean. He doesn't sleep, doesn't seem to like eating, always wears the same coat and tie... what do you normally get him for Christmas?'

Sam almost choked on hearing that question. It brought them right up against one of the things he'd been avoiding thinking about, much less talking about. They didn't normally do Christmas, even just Sam and Dean. And they'd never celebrated the holiday with Cass. Besides which, Sam still didn't know what to get for his own mother, so he sure as Hell couldn't help with getting a gift for an Angel.

Mom, perceptive as always, said, "This is new for you too, isn't it?"

Sam didn't like how transparent he was, but it also came as a relief and he sighed, "Yeah... we... uh... Christmas was never really... I mean a couple of times..." he gave up and trailed off.

For a moment they were both quiet, then Mom said, "You know, I thought it would be easier if it was as strange for you as it is for me. But..." she sighed, "Turns out that just makes it scarier."

Sam nodded, thinking again that he had no concept of what to get this amazing woman for Christmas, and that whatever it was could not possibly convey how truly special she was to him, yet it had to do just that because it was their first Christmas together.

All he could think of to say was, "Believe me, I know."

Abruptly, for no apparent reason, Mom smiled and actually laughed a little.

"What?" Sam asked, smiling hesitantly, wanting in on the joke.

"Nothing," Mom said, but then when Sam continued to stare at her she relented, "You said Castiel didn't have very good people skills. And it just crossed my mind that... we don't either."

Sam laughed and looked down, then nodded, having to acknowledge the truth of it.

It was sad and kind of pathetic, but also funny and very, very true. Sam and Dean certainly didn't relate well to other people and -from what he'd seen- he was pretty sure they were a lot like their mother in that respect. Certainly not one of them was handling this new mother-sons relationship they'd suddenly been gifted with very gracefully. It was amazing and wonderful, but it was also very hard and utterly bewildering, and they were all sort of floundering in their various ways, none of them quite sure what to do with each other.

It also crossed Sam's mind that Cass had learned most of his people skills from Dean, and the rest from Sam. Which probably explained why the Angel had no hope of interacting successfully with other humans. Sam and Dean were neither good role-models nor effective teachers when it came to human interaction, though Dean had put in valiantly misguided efforts on several occasions.

"You know," Sam said after he'd let the full tragic humor of the situation wash over him, "If we find and stop that witch, I'm pretty sure Cass will accept that," he paused thoughtfully before adding, "I know you can't wrap it... but I don't think he'll mind."

"Sounds like a plan," Mom said, putting money on the table as a tip for their waitress before getting up and preparing to take another whack at finding the elusive Lisa Harrow.

* * *

The death of The Demon was no source of sorrow for Harrow.

She hadn't really needed the damned thing very much anymore, and that relationship had been bound to end in blood one way or the other. Truthfully, the Winchesters had done her a favor.

The downside? They were still here.

Harrow didn't know the full effects of her spell. It had never occurred to her that it could have been the spell itself which had drawn the Winchesters here so quickly, because it had not been her intention in the slightest that it should establish or strengthen an existing empathic link between the Angel and its human. She knew that the spell had after effects, that the Angel would continue molting without further spell-work. The reason she'd cast it repeatedly had been to speed up the process, but once should have been enough for quite awhile. That had been the whole idea.

Catch Angels, cast the spell, let them molt over time.

As the Angel had begun to shed feathers more rapidly, Harrow had found something else about the sped up process. The feathers came out increasingly damaged, and she wasn't sure they would work as well for the spells which required them. She was fairly certain the feathers she'd collected the last time she cast the spell were totally worthless, which was more than a little disappointing.

But next time would be different. She'd find an easier Angel to tackle, one that didn't have Hunters willing to tear the Earth apart to find it. She'd be more careful about the warding, learning from the mistakes she and The Demon had made this time. She'd soften the impact of the spell a little, and give it time to take its full effect before repeating it.

So it would take a little longer to get the feathers, so what? That was alright. She could wait.

In the long-run, it meant more of the feathers would be in good condition, and that the Angel would survive to -hopefully- grow new ones. The process would be sustainable, which meant greater reward and less risk in the long run. And this time there would be no Demon looking over her shoulder, telling her what to do or threatening to kill her if she couldn't prove her continued worth. More importantly, no Demon taking a cut of the profits made off of _her_ idea.

For now though, she just needed to avoid attracting attention, and wait for the Winchesters to leave.

Why the hell were they still here anyway? They'd already killed The Demon. They'd technically taken their Angel back, or what was left of it anyway. What more did they want?

Not that it was particularly difficult to avoid them. They knew only about the house which she had rather unhappily shared with The Demon when it was around. Or anyway, they'd shared the house until The Demon took over the farmer and they set up the farmhouse property as their base of operations.

But she had another residence under a different name, in anticipation of the possibility that she or The Demon were discovered by Hunters and Harrow needed somewhere to go to ground until they left.

The apartment was small and stuffy, but it was better than nothing, and anyway it was where she'd been collecting the jars of shed feathers because she didn't trust The Demon with them and so couldn't risk leaving them at the farmhouse or her own home. She hadn't told The Demon about the apartment, and had never intended for it to find out that she had one in addition to her own home.

Sitting on the edge of the bed that served as the only real furniture in the tiny apartment, Harrow looked around at the mason jars full of bloodied feathers. Those feathers represented more wealth than she could have conceived of just a few short years ago, and with the added bonus of not having to deal with a partner anymore, meaning they had no strings attached, just value. Each feather was worth a small fortune she could take either in cash or in trade for some other supernatural item of equal value.

Harrow didn't need the feathers themselves. She never had.

There was no spell she wanted to do that involved Angel feathers, the feathers were simply a means to an end. The Demon would have taken over half the feathers straight off the top, trading them for its own purposes, being as it had no more use for the feathers themselves than Harrow.

Since The Demon was no longer involved...

Harrow took a deep breath and tried to calculate the value in the room. It was enormous. With these feathers alone (even though many of them were damaged), she could easily acquire ingredients and spell books and everything she needed to become one of the most powerful witches still alive.

_Power_. That's what the feathers truly represented.

Admittedly, all that power had come at a cost. But The Demon was no great loss. And what was one less Angel in the world, really? The world was all going to ruin anyway, why shouldn't Harrow grab while the getting was good and enjoy the ride? Besides, it wasn't like Santa was going to put coal in her stocking because she was a bad girl. Even if he was real, Santa wouldn't dare piss off a witch, especially not one on the verge of greatness.

In truth, the whole concept of Christmas had always seemed uproariously funny to her.

People couldn't even agree absolutely about what was good and what was evil, yet they had a whole holiday centered around that debate. A holiday which was normally punctuated by break-ins, traffic accidents and murders as everyone battled over the imaginary concept of Christmas cheer, fighting with other shoppers to get that special toy for their kid, driving like maniacs to reach the homes of relatives they would then lie to and pretend to like, gorging themselves on food and candy and drink they would later regret either while standing on a scale or bending over a toilet, giving presents to screaming toddlers because it might damage their precious little psyches if anyone told them they'd been bad and didn't deserve any gifts, all supposedly in the name of peace on earth and goodwill towards men.

To Harrow, it was all really quite funny, in a pathetic kind of way.

On a sudden impulse, Harrow opened one of the jars and started pulling out feathers.

She was feeling rather crafty, one might even say moved by the "festive spirit," and decided to do an art project with a few of the feathers. She had more than she knew what to do with already and anyway she could always get more. Might as well indulge the whim that took her fancy.


	21. Light Will Shine

_Light will shine and we won't stumble in the dark.  
_**-For Unto Us**_** (Point of Grace)**_

* * *

"So still no luck with the witch hunt, huh?" Dean said, glancing at Cass even as he did so.

"_No,"_ Sam's voice on the phone replied, _"How's Cass?"_

"Still got a hole in his chest. Started wheezin' when he breathes a little while ago," Dean answered mildly, though inside he was knotted up with fear for the Angel's life.

Cass had become less responsive than he'd been earlier, if such a thing was at all possible. He no longer moved his head to follow Dean when he walked around the room, and there was an increasing look of vacancy in the way Cass stared, like he wasn't really looking _at_ Dean anymore, but kind of _through_ him. And he'd still made no attempt whatsoever to heal himself physically. The Angel was fading, Dean was sure of it. But he didn't want to say it straight out, as if avoiding saying the words could somehow prevent it from being real.

With equal forced casualness, Sam said, _"That's probably bad. Angels aren't supposed to do that."_

"Yeah, thanks, for that medical opinion, Doctor," Dean retorted sharply, regretting it even as he spoke, adding almost immediately after the end of the sentence, "Sorry. I'm just..."

"_I know,"_ Sam interrupted, _"We're all tired."_

They were quiet for a little bit, before Sam asked the inevitable, though he already knew from Dean's tone throughout the conversation what the answer would be.

"_Any luck with the traffic cameras?"_

"No. It's more like we're chasin' a ghost than a witch. Car goes in, never comes out. But we know for damn sure the witch isn't still at the farmhouse... right?"

"_Mom and I went over every inch of that place before we left while you were busy getting Cass into the Impala," _Sam reminded him, _"If she was there, she was invisible."_

"Well that's a comforting thought," Dean muttered sarcastically.

"_We'll keep looking,"_ Sam said, but he did not sound optimistic.

"And..." Dean sighed wearily, "I'll keep sitting here, pretending to do useful things on the internet."

After a couple more sentences where they each avoided saying aloud that they were afraid they weren't going to win this one, at least not before it was too late to do Cass any good, Sam hung up. Dean sat holding his phone for awhile longer, thinking of all the people over the years who had helped them, worked with them, been friends and family to them all their lives... nearly all of whom were dead now.

That Cass might become yet another casualty even though they'd gotten him out of the clutches of a Demon alive was too awful to bear much consideration... but Dean considered it anyway.

"You don't wanna weigh in or anything, do you?" Dean asked of Cass, who twitched slightly and looked past him briefly, but otherwise offered no response, which was exactly what Dean expected at this point, "No? Well, I guess it's back to camera footage then."

He didn't like Cass's continued silence. It was weird, and reminded him of the way the Angel used to just show up behind him and stand there waiting for Dean to notice without saying anything. And the fact that the Angel used to hang around, watching them when they couldn't see him. Usually, Dean preferred to forget those times. Even if he still had his wings, Cass knew better than to do that sort of thing now. He'd learned a lot about how to interact with people... or maybe just how to interact with Dean.

Even though he'd vehemently discounted what The Demon said aloud, Dean couldn't internally dismiss _all_ of its words so easily. Was it possible that The Demon was right about one thing? Had Dean somewhere along the line stopped being Cass's ally and friend, gone right past being his brother and somehow become some screwed up kind of god to this particular Angel? It was disturbing to even think about.

That couldn't be true. It was ridiculous. They'd all met actual for real God. And God's Sister too. And anyway, it wasn't like Cass treated Dean with any particular reverence, right? In fact, of late, he'd been firing back when Dean insulted him. Dean had merely served as Cass's model for what free will and humanity looked like. That in itself had been pretty damn humbling... but surely it didn't go any further or get any weirder than that... right? But, on the other hand, Dean didn't treat God with much reverence, in fact it was usually a lot more like contempt... and Cass had used him as a role-model, so...

The longer Dean looked at the camera footage without seeing anything of value, the harder it was _not_ to think about the possibility that The Demon had somehow been right, especially considering all the other -admittedly twisted- truths it had spoken. And, the more he thought about it, the more unsettled he became. As darkness fell outside, Dean's exhaustion caught up with him, and he found he could keep quiet no longer.

Tiredly, Dean rubbed his eyes, "I think I let that Demon get in my head, Cass, even if you were smart enough not to. And it gave me delusions of grandeur. So tell me it was wrong. _Please_. Tell me you haven't got me up on some fancy-ass golden pedestal in your head, because that'd be all kinds of screwed up. You're family, like my brother... and that's how it should be. You hear me, Cass?"

Cass didn't even really look at him as he spoke, saying nothing, expressing nothing, just... silent.

Feeling suddenly foolish about even entertaining such notions, much less speaking them aloud, Dean leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath, "I need to take a break. No... I need to _sleep_. I'll be hallucinating sheep in a minute. And you," he looked meaningfully at Cass, "Not a word of what I just said to Sammy, you hear? You breathe one word of that to him and I'll have to kill you myself. I'm serious, he don't need that kind of ammunition against me."

Cass didn't bat an eye, and Dean began to wonder if the Angel was listening but unable to actually _understand_ what was being said to him.

Abruptly, Cass twitched. His eyes widened and unfocused, and he suddenly seemed desperate to move in some way that wasn't immediately clear because the limbs of his vessel didn't actually respond much. The twitch repeated, becoming more of a marked flinch, which in turn grew into a cringe, and Cass closed his eyes. The cringe expanded into a shiver, which flowered into all out shuddering.

Dean realized that whatever had struck Cass last night must be striking him again, and he was uncomfortable with how much it looked like Rowena's attack dog spell.

"Hey, whoa, whoa, Cass, _whoa_, easy," Dean said, getting up and moving closer, unsure if he would be providing support or restraint within the next few seconds, "Take it easy."

Cass had found the bodily control to start to pushing himself more upright on the bed but then he started to draw his limbs toward his body, withdrawing defensively, his eyes widening, seeing something that wasn't in the room with them, something which apparently terrified him.

"Cass!" Dean called more urgently, hoping the Angel would listen to him.

When Dean reached out to him, Cass grabbed hold of Dean's arms, at first as though to fend him off, but then hanging onto him as if for balance. Dean felt the Angel's shuddering through his arms, and it scared the Hell out of him.

A small whimper escaped Cass, and Angelic light briefly flickered in his eyes, then faded out. His tremors got worse, beginning to feel almost more like a seizure than anything. It tore Dean up inside that there seemed to be nothing he could do except hold onto the Angel and hope Cass could ride it out.

Dean didn't even realize that the pressure in the room was going up until he heard the walls begin to creak; it was as though the Angel was unconsciously attempting to push away his disembodied fears. A high-pitched whine warned that the Celestial being within the vessel was beginning to use its true voice. Dean felt his ears pop, and wondered how safe it was to be in the room right now.

The light in Cass's eyes flickered again, became a flash, and finally Angelic light blazed forth so brilliantly that Dean was forced to squint and then close his eyes to shield them. He knew what that light could do to him if Cass decided to use it as a weapon. But Dean refused to go, instead continued to cling to the Angel, kept his eyes shut, and set his jaw.

"I'm not goin' anywhere, Cass. I'm here. And I'm stayin', dammit."

* * *

Night had fallen, and Sam and Mom had come no closer to actually finding Lisa Harrow.

Tired and discouraged, they had admitted defeat for the day and were heading back to the motel to share the unhappy news with Dean. Not that Dean wouldn't have already guessed as much. After all, if Sam and Mom had found Harrow and dealt with her, they'd have called him, and he knew it.

Of course -ideally- Cass's condition would have notably improved in fairly short order. At least, that was how it normally worked when something blocking or warping his powers was removed. It was sort of like putting kryptonite in a lead-lined box. Superman usually recovered almost instantaneously.

Of course, Cass was typically still drained for awhile afterwords. Healing took a fair amount of energy, and he seemed to have less to spare these days, something that had begun to worry Sam a little, even though he preferred not to think about it, and he, Dean, and Cass seldom brought it up.

But before he could get too deep into that thought process, Sam's full attention was drawn by light from the window of an apartment building to the right. And not just _any_ light. Angelic light, the kind that flared in an Angel's eyes, glowed in their hands, and burned through the bodies of those they smote.

"I don't believe it," Sam breathed, slowing the Impala to a crawl, then stopping entirely as he looked out and up through the windshield at the window above.

It wasn't very bright as such light went, far from blinding, but it was unmistakable nonetheless.

Sam was surprised enough by the sight of the light itself, but the form it took was still more baffling. It looked for all the world like a decorative feather angel someone had hung in the window, like the ones edged with strings of Christmas lights that were in the windows of several homes they'd driven past already. But anyone who'd seen the sort of light Angels emitted would never mistake the light from that decoration as anything else. The feathers, therefore, were _real_ Angel feathers. They had to be.

"Is that what I think it is?" Mom asked, no more able to believe the sight than Sam was.

"Uh," was all Sam managed to say in response, his mind busy scrambling madly to find some explanation, some logic, some _reason_ for what he was seeing.

He'd seen a lot of bizarre things in his life. A _lot._ But he had never seen _this_.

Not only did it feel blasphemous in some way he couldn't have explained to use the feathers of the Heavenly Host as mere window dressing, it seemed wasteful. The feathers were so rare and held such tremendous power within them that leaving them in the window was a simply absurd way to use them.

It also seemed dangerous.

Anyone even passingly familiar with Angels would be unable to miss the supernatural equivalent of a brilliant neon sign advertising the source of those feathers. It would draw the interest of every Heavenly and Hellish thing that saw it, either because they wanted to see if there was an Angel they could kill or else seeking to smite whoever had the gall to do this.

Not to mention that it would also attract notice from anyone or anything that knew what Angel feathers could be used for, many of whom would be interested in taking the feathers -by force if necessary- for their own uses. It was a flashing beacon calling all that was supernatural or was in any way involved with that world to come and kill the owner of the apartment for one reason or another.

"Why would anyone do that?" Mom asked after they'd sat in silence, just staring up at the window for an uncounted number of seconds.

Sam tried to think of an answer, realized he couldn't, and said, "We could go find out."

Mom nodded, and rephrased what he'd said, "We _should_ go find out."

* * *

In an awe-struck whisper, Harrow asked aloud, "What _is_ this?"

Exiting the bathroom wrapped in a towel after a refreshing shower, rubbing the moisture from her hair with another towel, Harrow stopped dead at the sight of the ethereal light which had flooded the apartment. For an instant, she was frozen not by surprise or confusion, but simply by the fact that it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. Though she had seen Angelic light before, and recognized it almost immediately for what it was, she'd never seen it quite like _this_.

The light seemed to call out to her, beckoning her closer, offering her a truth or insight she had somehow missed until now and -without quite knowing that she had done so- Harrow stepped deeper into the room, looking from one side to the other, surrounded by the light emanating from the jarred feathers on all sides of the apartment.

Harrow had never noticed any light coming from Angel feathers, perhaps because the light was normally only visible in darkness. And it had not occurred to her that there might be anything different about the feathers she had ripped away and stolen from the Angel.

Until now.

More surprising than the light itself was the sudden realization of what she had done earlier.

Without even thinking about it, she had fashioned a DIY feather Angel, and then hung it up in the window. She gazed at it with abject confusion and a growing sense of dread. She didn't know what had possessed her to make that object, or to hang it in the window. And it _did_ feel in retrospect as if she'd been... well, not quite possessed, but somehow compelled to do it. As if some outside force had _told_ her to.

Because she'd felt safe in the apartment, sure of her hiding place, and her own power, she hadn't thought to resist the impulse when it came to her, or even question where the thought had come from. She hadn't wondered, and now she sensed it was too late.

Horror struck her, for she did not know who or what had entered the suggestion into her mind, much less how or even _why_ the feathers were flooding the room with celestial brilliance. That scared her, because she had felt for a long time -at least subconsciously- that she knew a great deal about magic: the supernatural in general and Angels in particular.

The steady exposure to Angel feathers as she collected and sold them over the years had inured her to them, and she had stopped thinking of them as something mystical. They were just objects, property to be bought and sold for personal gain. Something of value, and very powerful yes, but only materially, nothing more.

Light the likes of which she had never seen coming from every feather in every mason jar was a shocking and unwelcome reminder that these feathers were not _just_ valuable, not _only_ imbued with incredible power, not _merely_ magical. They were from beyond the realm of humanity, made of stuff humankind could not even begin to fathom the nature of. They were _not_ a piece of a flesh and blood creature, but instead had been plucked from something awesome in the oldest sense of the word.

Something _Holy_.

What had become ordinary to her was suddenly unbearably extraordinary. What she had unconsciously assumed was impossible was suddenly presented as being not only _very_ possible, but in fact quite real. She didn't know how it was happening. Didn't know why either. Didn't know how to stop it. All those unknowns terrified her, in a way that no person or thing of Hell or Earth ever had.

Staring at the fiery feather angel in the window, Harrow began to tremble with fear.

Though she heard no voice internally or externally, Harrow sensed the message of the light, the feathers, and the bloody angel in the window as clearly as if that message had been screamed right in her face: _What you have stolen was not yours to take, and you will now face damnation for your crime. For your sin against one of God's Chosen, you will burn for eternity in the fires of Hell._

As the damning words reverberated through her like unheard but clearly felt thunder, her fear escalated to panic as she sensed that there was no escape from this... this unknown and unknowable _presence_ in the room with her. She knew more with each pulsing heartbeat thudding in her chest that this apartment was about to become a chamber of death.

A loud crash, the sound of a door being kicked open, heralded the arrival of two of the Winchesters. Harrow jumped and whirled to face them and, for the first time, truly began to understand why The Demon had been so afraid of attracting their wrath.

Impossibly, yet undeniably, they had found her.

In the back of her mind, Harrow was certain they had somehow done it with the feathers, but how they could possibly have made the feathers light up -especially from a distance- eluded her, and served to deepen the fear which was pulsing in her veins.

She threw a hand out towards them and screamed, "_Abite_!"

In the same instant, there was a deafening roar as a bullet left the muzzle of a gun.


	22. Do You Believe?

_All that we have, whether costly or meek/  
Because we believe.  
_**-How Many Kings?**_** (Downhere)**_

* * *

"_Abite!_"

It had not surprised Mary that the apartment which had caught their interest was inhabited by the witch they were looking for. It would have been a crazy coincidence for someone unrelated to the defeathering project but living within six blocks of the motel where the Winchesters were staying to somehow have come into possession of Angel feathers, especially as Mary was given to understand that Angels were extremely rare, particularly on Earth.

But she had not been fully ready for the witch's quick response time, or being flung backwards into the hall from which she and Sam had come. However, Sam was apparently more prepared than she, because he got a shot off even as he was thrown back and slammed against the wall. From where she slid to, Mary couldn't see if he'd succeeded in hitting the witch or not, but he'd certainly given it a fair try, which was better than she'd been able to manage.

For whatever reason, the witch did not pin them after flinging them, and Mary was free to get back up almost as soon as her breath returned after having been knocked out of her. Running past Sam without stopping to check on him, Mary entered the apartment, gun still in hand, dropping and rolling on the way in anticipation of another attack from the witch.

However, within the room, Mary became aware of a painfully familiar sound in addition to the light flung outward blindingly from mason jars stacked all over the apartment. She put her free hand to her ear, and looked around for Harrow, but didn't immediately see the witch despite the incredible light flooding every corner of the one-room apartment.

There were only two places to hide that Mary could see. There was a door leading to a bathroom off to the left. Nearby, there was a queen-sized bed, behind which one could theoretically take cover. Mary chose the bed first. If the witch was in the bathroom, there would be nowhere for her to go that Mary wouldn't be able to see her. But if Mary went to the bathroom, anyone hiding behind the bed might flee through the apartment door. Sam might get them, and he might not. Mary didn't know if Sam was mobile or not, but this was no time to find out. Seconds counted here, she could feel it.

Even though Mary expected trouble, Harrow was faster than she anticipated, and she wasn't entirely prepared for the witch to try and take her head on, as that wasn't the typical style of witches. But as she rounded the bed, the witch threw herself upward and slammed into Mary's chest with her shoulder, driving her backward. Mary struggled to keep her feet, as the witch fought to knock her to the ground, at the same time vying for control of the gun.

Harrow seemed to be screaming, but Mary couldn't actually hear above the sound emanating from all corners of the room, a sound which had dramatically increased in volume, almost as though it was responding in fury to this latest development, and drowning out any attempt the witch might be making to cast a spell. The tremendous -and growing- noise served to disorient both women, which actually worked out in Mary's favor, because Harrow got hold of the gun and pushed away from her, but then staggered and blinked instead of taking aim, and that gave Mary time to spin and land a kick to Harrow's midsection, driving her to the floor.

Rolling the instant she was down, Harrow fired blindly and Mary ducked back. Behind her, glass shattered as a bullet found its way into a mason jar. Light flared more brilliantly from that spot, as if the bullet had somehow sparked off a flame. The pitch of the sound managed to ratchet up higher, and the mason jars began to shake and rattle against each other.

Involuntarily, Mary found herself covering her ears, struggling to resist the impulse to close her eyes in order to shut out the light. Mary didn't know if she was screaming or not, was having a bit of trouble telling up from down; at this point she was in no shape to finish Harrow off.

Covering her ears, red streaks of blood marring the beauty of her blond hair, Harrow got up and bolted for the door.

She never made it.

A bullet filled with witch killing brew found its way into her skull before she hit the threshold, and she dropped to the floor on the instant, blood running from the hole even as she died. In less than a heart beat, the sound and light faded, and the world seemed to be suddenly filled with darkness and silence.

* * *

As suddenly as the fit had begun, it ended.

With an exhausted but relieved sounding sigh that was almost a whimper, Cass relaxed against the wall behind him, and let go of Dean. The pressure in the room dropped, and the walls quit shaking. Dean's ears popped again.

Cautiously, Dean opened his eyes, not even noticing that the feathers on the nightstand had been brightly aglow, for the light was already fading. His ears were ringing, but that was simply in complaint to the earlier auditory abuse they had endured. He was pretty sure his forearms were bruised where Cass had held tight to him, but he had no intention of mentioning that either now or in future.

Cass had closed his eyes and was breathing more deeply, though in a still somewhat labored manner. There was evidence of strain in his face, but the sort that indicated expended effort, not ongoing struggle. Whatever it was he'd been fighting with on the inside, it was apparently over now.

Dean sat back in the chair he had earlier vacated, aware of being out of breath even though he'd done very little. Wiping a hand across his face, he was startled to find he was soaked with sweat. He had the feeling that he'd somehow put a lot of energy into doing... _something_, but he wasn't sure what it had been, and that scared him a little bit, as did the fact that Cass appeared to be unconscious again.

He jumped half out of his skin in shock when his phone rang, but still managed to snatch it off the table and answer it, recognizing the number on sight, "Sam!"

"_We got her, Dean,"_ Sam said, a slight tremor in his voice, _"Lisa Harrow is dead."_

Even though Sam didn't say as much, Dean knew something more than a simple witch kill had happened. Something that had Sam puzzled, a little excited, maybe even scared.

It took Dean a second to ask, because his mouth had suddenly gone dry as his subconscious understood what his conscious mind had not yet figured out how to accept. He'd known it was over the second Cass let him go. He'd known before Sam called that the witch was dead. He knew somehow that her death was what had allowed Cass to finally let go of him.

"What happened?"

Sam made a noise to indicate his confusion, then said, _"You're not gonna believe it."_

"Tell me," Dean insisted.

"_Later,"_ Sam promised, _"When we get back to the motel."_

* * *

"So you're saying these were lit up like Christmas lights?" Dean said, skeptically picking up one of the mason jars full of feathers Mom and Sam had brought back.

In light of the dramatic way they had been glowing earlier, the feathers now looked dreadfully ordinary. Actually, they mostly looked dreadful, bent and twisted to cram them into the container, still sheathed in the blood that had covered them when they were ripped out. But, in comparison to earlier, they looked utterly typical feathers, hardly of celestial origin at all.

"That's the only place the light could've come from," Mom answered matter-of-factly, nursing a split lip with some ice wrapped in a towel, "Though that doesn't explain the noise."

Cass was not equipped to weigh in on the discussion, having been unconscious since before Sam and Mom returned, which had Sam worried that they hadn't found and killed Harrow soon enough, despite the tremendous luck that had guided them to her door.

Or was it something more than luck?

Was it really possible that it was a coincidence that those feathers had lit up just as he and Mom were passing the apartment? Feathers that -as Sam had observed the night before- didn't even glow the way naturally shed Angel feathers did? And was it also coincidence that the light and noise had faded the second Sam dropped Harrow with a bullet to the brain? Dean had related what happened at the motel, and the timing of it made coincidence seem thoroughly unlikely.

"It had to have been Cass... somehow," Sam said, "Right? I mean, they _are_ his feathers. Maybe he retained some kind of... link to them or something."

"Well that's an unsettling thought," Dean remarked, clearly having some difficulty trying to imagine being scattered in several hundred... or perhaps thousand... pieces, and being able to sense them all, "But it hardly seems likely. If Angels knew where their feathers went after they dropped 'em, wouldn't they have moved to stop some people from using their feathers for purposes they didn't like?"

"Who says they haven't?" Sam replied, "Cass never talks about Angel feathers," he added for emphasis, "_Ever_. Everything we know about them, we learned from the lore, and we all know that even the lore doesn't know all there is to know about Angels."

"Yeah, but... come on," Dean objected, though he couldn't seem to come up with words to express all the reasons that the explanation didn't make sense to him.

He didn't need to. In truth, Sam didn't find it terribly satisfactory himself. There was too much unusual in the situation. Something exceptional had happened here, beginning with the psychic impressions (Sam could think of nothing else to call them) that had plagued Dean at the start and going from there.

"I don't know," Sam admitted with some frustration, "There's something different about feathers that get taken from an Angel against the Angel's will, just like there's a difference between a naturally shed feather and a freely given one. We know that much anyway. Maybe there's more different about them than what we already know. Or maybe somehow the spell severed them physically but they stayed tied to Cass in some kind of... non-physical way?"

Dean was shaking his head, but Sam could tell it was because he didn't _want_ to believe instead of because he found the explanation inherently unbelievable. Sam had the same trouble, in part because it was impossible for him to imagine being able to feel all those detached pieces, to sense where they were and what was happening around them. The way that might fragment Cass's ability to focus alone was more than Sam could begin to get his head around.

"Just look at them," Sam said, gesturing to the feathers on the nightstand, one of which had been naturally shed, whereas the others had been forced off their wing, "You can _see_ the difference in them. Maybe there's more that we _can't _see."

Dean scowled at the feathers as if they offended him.

"Well, whatever the case," Mom said decisively, "We might never have found Harrow if she hadn't put that feather angel in her window. And I'm not sure we would've won if not for the light and sound distracting her," Mom did not say, but implied, that either her or Sam or both might have been killed.

"Yeah, _why_ did she do that?" Dean wondered, though of course he had to know none of them had the answer to that question, "You'd think anybody who knew enough to avoid all of the traffic cams around the farmhouse so we wouldn't find them would be smart enough not to hang freakin' Angel feathers in their window. Seems kinda crazy to me."

Sam shrugged helplessly. He didn't have any answers, only questions.

"Well, I've said it before and I'll say it again," Dean said, setting down the jar, "Demons and monsters I get; people are just crazy," after a thoughtful pause, he inquired, "Anybody else startin' to find this town a little too creepy?"

"I've been driving all day, and you haven't had any sleep either," Sam pointed out, objecting to Dean's indirect but emphatically clear suggestion.

"And I might never sleep again if I spend another minute in this burg," Dean countered.

Sam didn't really want to argue. He didn't like all the questions they'd been faced with here any more than Dean did. And he didn't like the thought that something further weird might happen even though they'd killed the witch and The Demon. And they really didn't want to wait around for the cops who had doubtless been called to the apartment a few blocks away in response to the shots fired to expand their search to include this motel. They were all exhausted, and they all just wanted to go home.

He sighed, "You want to pick Cass up, or should I?"

"You take care of the rest of it, I'll deal with Mr. Comatose," Dean replied.

There wasn't a whole lot of 'the rest of it' to take care of. As per usual, they'd kept most of their belongings bagged up, ready to leave at a moment's notice. But Sam didn't argue. He was too tired to argue. And he could tell that Dean was tired enough that he was willing to argue about anything.

* * *

It felt damn good to leave the city behind, even though they were practically buried in questions that were sure to follow them home. Right now, Dean didn't care about the questions.

He just wanted to get his family -all of them- home safely. The questions could wait... or go straight to Hell for all he cared. He didn't need an explanation for any of it, so long as nothing about this little rescue adventure came back later to bite them in the ass. He didn't need answers for everything. It was enough to know the bad things were dead, and that they had Cass back.

Even though the Angel hadn't stirred, not even to so much as heal his vessel, he still looked better somehow now that Harrow was dead. Still sick and bloody and worn out, but no longer fading, not getting worse. Dean could live with it taking Cass time to recover, just so long as he _did_ eventually recover, something Dean now felt confident about. But it wasn't just that the witch was dead. There was more to Dean's improved outlook than that.

Dean had felt like there was a weight around his neck ever since Cass had gone missing, a weight that had been lifted probably the second Lisa Harrow was dead, which served as confirmation in his own mind that the witch's spell had the unintended side effect of establishing or strengthening some kind of empathic connection between himself and Cass for reasons he didn't want to dwell on.

Even when he hadn't been actively getting pinged anymore because the witch wasn't setting her spell off every few hours, Dean still hadn't felt quite right inside, like he was sensing something he shouldn't be able to. That feeling was gone now, and it came as a tremendous relief.

After a few hours of driving, Dean pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store. Mom woke with a jerk when Dean cut the Impala's engine, though it didn't disturb either Cass or Sam a bit.

Without discussing it, Dean and Mom went inside, Dean with the primary intention of buying some sort of snack to chew on and help keep him awake. Eventually Sam would have to take over, but Dean wanted to let his brother sleep for awhile longer. He'd earned the rest.

There was no line at this time of night, so the stop didn't take long.

As they were walking back to the Impala, Mom spoke up, "Do you think Cass will be okay?"

"Sure," Dean replied, "He's as tough a son-of-a-bitch as they come. You've seen that already."

"Yeah," Mom agreed quietly, "I suppose I have."

She hesitated near the back of the Impala, so Dean stopped and waited.

"I used to be scared of him, you know," Mom said.

Actually, that came as news, and it took Dean a second to respond.

Of course, there was more than surprise at work, but also a certain... shameful reluctance. His mother knew how Castiel had met Dean, pulling him out of Hell. But Dean hadn't told her what meeting the Angel on Earth had really been like. If she hadn't known before, she now knew what the true voice of an Angel sounded like, though she would not be able to even imagine the sort of terror it had inflicted on the unknowing Dean... who had never believed in Heaven or Angels or God until it became unavoidable. There was no shame in that, or at least Dean didn't feel any. It was what had happened _after_ Cass had his vessel that gave Dean pause now.

"You know the first thing Bobby and I did when we met Cass face to face?" Dean asked, but didn't wait for an answer before confessing, "We filled him with salt rounds and stabbed him with the Demon knife," he felt a little embarrassed that he'd ever been so thoroughly ignorant as to try and take out an Angel that way.

"Really?" Mom's eyebrows climbed, "What'd he do?"

"Knocked Bobby out cold with a touch, pulled the knife out of his shoulder and told me Heaven had work for me," Dean replied, then added, only half-joking, "I think for awhile he thought that shooting and stabbing were the traditional Hunter's greetings," Dean shook his head, "But he scared the crap outta me. I didn't know what he was, what he wanted or what he was capable of. Hell, I don't think _he_ really knew either. Not back then," after taking a deep breath, Dean concluded, "But believe what you've seen. When all the chips are down and everything's at stake, Cass is always there to stand with us, no matter what it costs. You can trust that. I know I do."

Mom was quiet for a long moment before she finally said, "I know I can. And... I do."

"Good," Dean nodded curtly, "Good talk. Now let's get in the car and get outta here before Sammy wakes up and notices we didn't buy any snacks for him."


	23. All I Can Give is This

_And if the greetings this season will bring/  
Leave you searching for meaning/  
You will look to the words I have written/  
And you'll be set free.  
_**-All I Can Give You**_** (John Lancaster)**_

* * *

Stairs were a nuisance and Castiel didn't like them. In fact, he disliked them so strongly that it had been his preference to employ his wings to avoid them, back when he was still able. Every time he entered or exited the Bunker, he was unpleasantly reminded of what he had lost, though he would probably not have used his wings there even if he had been able to, because he had noticed long ago that Dean and Sam found it disconcerting when he flew, so he generally avoided doing it when they were looking unless they were proving to be especially irritating that day.

Castiel had recently discovered that stairs were worse if his vessel was damaged. It hurt to navigate them, and it did things to his sense of place in relation to the rest of the universe that he wasn't comfortable with and which most often manifested physically as dizziness.

No, he didn't like stairs even a little bit.

But television! Castiel _liked_ television. He didn't understand it most of the time, but he liked it. He could sit and be content for days at a time just watching television. At times, Dean had accused him of having unhealthy relationships with the cheap televisions found in many motel rooms.

Castiel had woken up shortly before they reached the Bunker, and was well content to be deposited in the room that had gradually become his by unspoken consent, where he could just lie on his side and watch the television. He didn't really mind what was on, just so long as the pictures moved and changed and the speakers made sounds and some man in a suit periodically tried to sell him car insurance or a woman professed love to a cleaning utensil during the commercial breaks.

When Castiel had let Lucifer in, watching television in his own mind had been his only escape, the only way to distract himself from thinking about the awful things Satan might be doing in his body, and the only way to tune out the Devil's incessant and perpetually off-key singing of terribly repetitive songs in his head. Lucifer had mostly ignored him, occasionally sat on him, but was unable to break Castiel's concentration on the television without also losing control of the vessel involved. In effect, television had protected Castiel from some of Lucifer's worst fits of temper. And there had _definitely_ been some serious fits of temper, especially once God was involved.

It seemed to profoundly worry the Winchesters that Castiel hadn't yet spoken to them or healed himself, but that could hardly be helped. Even once the claws of the spell had been dug out of him, he was still mentally scrambled, and things like healing his vessel and speaking through its vocal apparatus were too much effort. In fact, had Dean not begged, cajoled and bullied him down the stairs, he would have still been sitting in the Impala in the garage, because stairs were most assuredly way too much trouble.

But, on the other hand, now he'd gotten into the Bunker, there was television, and that was good, especially as it provided adequate distraction from what a human would probably define as the emotional turmoil and raw nerves that the spell had left behind, both things that would take time to recover from. Castiel remembered quite clearly the state Rowena's spell had left him in even once it was deactivated. This was different, but similar enough that Castiel was almost comfortable with it, inasmuch as it was possible to be comfortable with something that tore into his being and left jagged wounds in his very essence.

At least there was television. That was some consolation.

A knock on the door stirred him from his tranquil state, but he didn't actually have to do anything about it. The door hadn't been latched, and for the moment the Winchesters felt free to come and go as they pleased. Castiel didn't understand fully why that wasn't always the case. Generalized privacy was something he had limited understanding of, though Dean had done his best to explain why it was important. Even being human hadn't really done much to clear the confusion for Castiel, though he had learned most of the basic rules fairly quickly and done his best to follow them.

He was not surprised that it was Mary who entered now. Sam and Dean were as inclined as ever to leave him alone to heal, which was just fine with him. Unlike a sickly or injured human, he had no need to get in and out of bed multiple times a day, or be turned over regularly, or be fed or watered. He could just lie where he was, utterly motionless, for days at a time.

In fact, that was exactly what he intended to do, and had already done for a period of time that wasn't worth measuring (but which -delightfully- he now _could_ measure). It wasn't like he really had a choice. He was too weak to even stand on his own at the moment. Besides, what he really needed now was quiet, and time to heal.

Mary was only trying to help, and Castiel realized that she was concerned about him for some reason (a reason which persistently eluded him), but her insistence on coming in and checking on him periodically through the day was a nuisance; it broke his concentration, which was harder to come by than usual. It also prevented him from fully immersing himself in the job of trying to put himself back together, because he never knew when she was going to come in and ask him if he needed anything, apparently seeking reassurance that he was okay. While his sense of time was innate and essentially infallible, it seemed that Mary's was anything but, as her visits appeared to be completely randomly timed. Besides which, while the boys were effectively cloaked to Angels, Mary was not, and he found the way she kept pacing around the Bunker very difficult to ignore.

He didn't have energy to spare trying to figure what human reasoning was at work here. Mary could do nothing for him, and he couldn't offer her anything either, so he could see no purpose behind her frequent but erratic visits, and was even less able to determine her motivation in persistently asking questions she already knew the answers to. The entire exercise was thoroughly perplexing, and he just didn't have the resources to spare trying to suss it out.

As usual, she asked him how he was feeling. As usual, he didn't try to answer except by looking at her, then returning his attention to the television. In a strict departure from what had become usual, she came in and sat down in the chair beside the bed.

Resigning himself to the fact that she wanted to talk at him even if he wasn't going to verbally respond to her, Castiel reluctantly looked away from the television and met her eyes. He saw a profound concern in her gaze, but he wasn't sure what it was about.

"Sam and Dean should be back in a couple of hours," Mary said.

A couple visits ago, she'd told him that Sam and Dean were returning to Austin to retrieve his truck, which seemed like an awful lot of trouble for an imminently replaceable vehicle. Somehow, he didn't think that was what she was now worried about.

There was a long pause, while Mary thought of something else to say which was not what she'd actually come to say, but which was apparently easier for her to say than whatever that was.

"I suppose you know it's Christmas Eve now," was what she eventually decided on.

Even had Castiel been unable to gather it for himself, the television programs and commercials would have been quick to give him that information. Repeatedly. He found the carefully timed repetition in television reassuring for reasons he was happy not to have to explain to anyone.

"I... uh... wasn't sure what to get for you," Mary confessed, and it sounded like she'd come close to saying what she was here to say, but somehow also managed to miss the heart of the matter entirely. More complicated than it had to be. Typical of humans, and Winchesters in particular.

Castiel was confused for a moment until he remembered the whole gift-giving at Christmas thing. He hadn't thought about it since that windless night on I-35 when Dean had called. Evidently, Mary had been expected to get a gift for him, as he had been expected to get one for Dean. To his great relief at the time, Dean had let him off the hook. He really didn't understand the Secret Santa business, or anything about this holiday except that it seemed to be somehow important to Dean, despite his barely ever mentioning it before his mother's resurrection. Castiel hadn't been able to figure that one out either.

"Sam said you'd probably accept the death of Lisa Harrow, even though I couldn't wrap that," Mary smiled fondly at this recent, dear memory of positive interaction with her offspring, then her smile faded, "But... well, I wasn't the one who killed her. And, anyway... I owe you more than that."

More than his life? Castiel wasn't sure what to do with that statement, especially since Mary didn't owe him anything, and he couldn't think why she would believe otherwise.

"When I first met you I... was afraid of you. You know that," what she was saying seemed to be difficult for her, because she stopped for a little while before going on, "But... I was also jealous. You knew Sam and Dean in the way I should have and... you meant the world to them. They trusted you. Loved you as if you were their brother. Always had you in mind even when you weren't around. I envied that... and I never thought to question what you'd been through to earn it."

Castiel was surprised by Mary's admission.

He'd never thought of himself as someone to be envied. Castiel knew Dean had frequently used him as a buffer between himself and Mary, but it hadn't occurred to him how Mary might have viewed that. As though Dean _preferred_ Castiel over his own mother.

"But the reason they love you is the reason most children love their mother or father. Because you've given them everything, and you don't expect anything from them in return. You understand love better than any of us," it seemed a strange view to take, but humans were prone to doing that sort of thing, so Castiel merely accepted it as Mary continued, "There aren't enough words to apologize for how I acted... the things I thought about you. And there definitely aren't enough to thank you for all you've done for my boys... and for me. We owe you our lives... I don't even know how many times over."

Castiel was uncomfortable with the praise. He hadn't really done anything to earn it. In fact, anyone paying attention knew he was a colossal screw-up. He frequently made hugely world altering mistakes that he couldn't fix, and he'd said and done countless things he regretted but could never take back or undo. His broken wings were a permanent and painful reminder of just one of many such mistakes. Mary didn't owe him anything, and neither did Sam or Dean. Their recently spiking overt concern for him was a jarring change from the accepted norm, and it only served to confuse him.

"I just..." Mary faltered, looking down at her hands in her lap, then taking a deep breath and meeting Castiel's gaze forthrightly, "I wanted you to know that I count you as one of my boys now. And... I should have from the start. But I didn't know who you were."

Even though Castiel didn't understand what he'd done to earn Mary's change of perspective, hearing the acceptance and affection in her voice felt wonderful.

For so long, Castiel had found himself standing alone, not truly one of the Winchesters, yet no longer accepted by -and all too often actively at war with- his Angel brothers and sisters, belonging nowhere. Even God Himself had barely looked at Castiel after The Darkness had removed Lucifer from his body. Not that Castiel could blame Him for that. Castiel was largely a failure as an Angel of the Lord, and of course no one knew that better than God Himself.

What Mary said didn't make Castiel feel any less lost, didn't offer him any more purpose in his increasingly directionless existence, but if his only reward from here until the end of his days was to be able to know the Winchesters, to help them, to be allowed to love them... he supposed he could accept that. That they would love him in return was beyond anything he could ask for.

"I suppose I could have written that on a singing card," Mary said with a wry smile, "But I thought it might sound better coming from me than it would being read over a cheap rendition of Jingle Bells."

Castiel realized at this point that he had to make an effort to respond. So he cleared his throat, which provoked a look of profound surprise from Mary, and did his best to gather his communication skills and use them, though he was not really quite ready to do so, and it was harder than it should have been.

"As long as I don't have to sit on top of that ridiculous tree in the library, you have nothing to apologize for," he said.

Mary had not expected him to talk. And she certainly had not expected him to make a joke, however feeble.

She sat for several seconds before realizing that Castiel was referring to the fact that many Christmas trees were topped with a decorative angel figurine. Castiel understood that actual Angels were not expected to sit on the trees, but his lack of comprehension of human eccentricities had been an obvious source of amusement for Sam and Dean on multiple occasions, so sometimes he purposely feigned ignorance with the precise intention of entertainment. It served in place of his virtually nonexistent comic ability.

Finally, Mary got the joke, and her smile became broader and more genuine than it had been heretofore. Castiel knew she had been afraid of him in a new way, quite different from before. She had been afraid that he would not forgive her initial cold rejection of him.

"I think that can be arranged," Mary told him with a laugh in response to his statement.

Really, there was nothing to forgive. She was human, fear and confusion were only to be expected. The reality of Angels was world-view shattering for most humans, even those who were religious. And, in truth, she had reacted far more positively and warmed to him much more rapidly than was typical of the species when one of its members discovered and was subsequently forced to deal with the reality of Angels.

"Good," Castiel said, feigning relief with a sigh.

For a time after that, silence reigned.

Then, hesitant but curious, Mary asked, "Did Dean really shoot you with rock salt when he met you?"

"Yes," Castiel replied dismissively, then realized that might paint Dean in a poor light in his mother's eyes, so he continued, "In his defense, he didn't believe in Angels at the time."

Mary shook her head, apparently in some wonder at the audacity of her son.

"And Sam?" She inquired after a little, "What did he do?"

"Well, he didn't see me until some time later," Castiel said with a sigh, resisting the urge to look at the television, which would have been easier, "And... to be honest... we didn't exactly see eye-to-eye."

Mary seemed to remember something, "He said you called him an abomination."

"I was hoping he'd forgotten about that," Castiel admitted, this time unable to maintain eye contact, though he did succeed in not looking at the television.

"Why did you call him that?" Mary asked, and he was surprised to hear only genuine curiosity and no accusation in her voice, even more surprised to look at her and not see recrimination in her eyes.

"I was extremely hungover at the time," Castiel explained carefully, telling the truth while at the same time avoiding answering the question almost entirely, "Angels normally don't get drunk, much less hungover. I was... not well prepared for the experience."

To Castiel's relief, Mary took the explanation at face value.

"I guess by those standards, your introduction to me wasn't too bad," Mary commented.

"Neither of us died from it," Castiel said dryly.

He'd certainly been mad enough to kill at the time, as well as still reeling from thinking he'd lost Dean, not to mention being wound tight with fear for Sam. Even though he'd already known what she looked like, Castiel had been so distracted that he hadn't even recognized Mary for who she was until Dean put name to the face. Only after slowing down and proverbially taking a breath had Castiel even begun to think about what that meant. But there really hadn't been time to sort it out, not then.

"I came within an inch of shooting you," Mary remarked, as though that were any kind of revelation, and apparently it was for her as she added, "Just like Dean did."

"It wouldn't have hurt me," Castiel told her.

"Still," Mary said, "It would have been the wrong thing to do. And I'm glad I didn't get the chance."

Castiel was surprised to hear himself say, "So am I."

He was even more surprised by how good it felt to see that his remark made Mary smile. Looking at her, he decided that he didn't really care _why_ his words had made her smile, or _why_ it made him feel good when she did. He was just glad for it and for her presence in his life. Sometimes things didn't need to have a reason. Sometimes things just were. Sometimes, it was enough to just... be.

And those times were the ones that made all the rest of it worthwhile.


	24. Looks Smart and Wears a Tie

**_A/N: _****_Thank you all for reading (and reviewing), Merry Christmas and I hope you enjoy the final chapter of this story._ **

* * *

_There's gifts for all the family...  
__...It's Christmas  
_**-Christmas in Heaven****_ (Monty Python)_**

* * *

It was too damn early in the morning to be conscious, but the second Dean woke up, he knew there was zero chance of going back to sleep, so he might as well get out of bed and bumble his way into the kitchen. Coffee was the only solution to premature consciousness. In fact, the older Dean got, the more convinced he became that coffee was probably the answer to most -if not all- of life's problems.

Well, that and bacon.

Someday, he hoped to find some monster he could kill with coffee and bacon. Who knew, maybe some day he'd be reading one of the books in the Bunker and find out bacon had been invented expressly to kill some big bad that was now extinct, courtesy of an overdose of grease.

Yes, it was _definitely_ way too early to be out of bed.

Finding the light already on in the kitchen, Dean grunted an acknowledgment of Castiel's presence and went to the counter where the currently in-use bag of coffee was kept. He picked it up and looked at it, relieved to find that it contained coffee. Whenever anyone stayed up all night reading lore, there was a fifty-fifty chance that they killed an entire bag of coffee in the process. But apparently nobody had felt the overwhelming urge to bone up on their knowledge.

Dean squinted, feeling he'd lost his train of thought somewhere.

Ah yes. _Coffee_.

Smug in his ability to recall the one salient topic of the morning, he turned to the coffee maker, holding the bag of grounds like a menacing weapon he planned to use on the innocent maker, which seemed to be cowering before him, begging for a couple more hours of rest before being forced to do its job. Dean had no sympathy for the coffee maker. In fact, before he'd had his morning coffee, he had sympathy for no one and no thing. If the world got screwed over some morning before he'd had his coffee, then humanity might at last be doomed for good and all.

Going through the motions of coffee prep, Dean began to get another nagging sensation. Something he was forgetting. Something important. Something... in the kitchen.

Halfway to the coffee maker with a pot of water, Dean stopped dead and rotated stiffly to look at the table in the kitchen. He blinked a couple of times to be sure of what he was seeing.

"Cass?"

Castiel was sitting at the table, frowning in apparent consternation at a bowl into which he'd put an amount of milk and cereal. He looked up from it willingly enough, an expression of calm bewilderment on his face as he registered Dean's shocked expression.

"I don't understand," Castiel said, looking back at the cereal bowl in front of him, "The description on the box says this cereal is crunchy, but when it's combined with milk, it simply disintegrates," he continued to frown at the bowl as he spoke, as if this mystery was of some deep and meaningful relevance that required intense consideration, "Why does it matter that the cereal was crunchy before it was put in the milk when it won't be by the time it is consumed? In fact, why bother with the cereal in the first place? Why not just put sugar and artificial flavoring in the milk and be done with it?"

Dean stared at Castiel for a moment longer. He didn't need this in the morning. Hell, he didn't need this _ever_. He tried to decide what emotion he was actually experiencing, just so he'd know what he was acting on. But who could tell before they'd had at least one cup of coffee?

"Cass," Dean repeated the name for lack of anything better to say.

Castiel looked up at him patiently, not appearing to expect an answer to his query about the cereal.

"You don't eat," Dean said finally, deciding that was as good a sentence as any.

This wasn't a hundred percent factual, but it was near enough that Dean was unwilling to put forth the qualifiers for the statement, especially this early in the morning. Cass was apparently willing to go along with the assertion without objection.

"No," Castiel agreed, his gaze falling back to the cereal bowl, "I just... enjoy pondering the process."

"You enjoy pondering the process of soaking cereal in milk?" Dean asked, for the sake of clarity.

Castiel again looked up from the bowl, and it finally registered with Dean that he looked good. Healthy, even. A little tired maybe, but no longer deathly pale, no longer visibly wounded or bloody. Most importantly, Castiel's eyes were clear when he looked at Dean, haunted only by their usual troubles and nothing more. His sentences, though oddly surreal, were coherent and achieved without evidence of struggle.

Mom had said Cass had talked to her while Sam and Dean were gone, but Dean hadn't been able to get anything out of the Angel last night when they'd returned, and had observed at the time that Cass hadn't yet bothered to heal... or even shift position since Dean had last seen him. The abruptness of the improvement after several days without apparent change was startling, especially before coffee.

"I tried it when I was human," Castiel sighed, now looking at the bowl, now at Dean, now back at the bowl, "But-" he paused regretfully, then concluded, "-I didn't understand it then either."

Dean decided to finish getting the coffee started before pursuing this conversation so much as one single step further. Castiel continued to observe the milky cereal until Dean finally sat down at the table with his coffee. Then he looked across at Dean, waiting for the man to speak again.

"So..." Dean said after he'd been working on the coffee for about ten minutes and Castiel had been staring at him in unsettling silence for almost that long, "You look better."

"I am," Castiel confirmed, as if the news was nothing to be excited over, "I healed myself."

"You healed your-" Dean broke off, realizing that wasn't the sentence he wanted to say, "Cass, you haven't even _moved_ in three days... and... now you're just... suddenly all good?"

"It seemed like the physical damage was very upsetting to you all, so as soon as I had enough energy, I healed myself. It will be some time before my powers fully regenerate."

"Wait a minute, let me get this straight," Dean said, slowly setting down his coffee mug as he absorbed the full meaning of what Castiel had just said, "You healed yourself _because we were upset_?"

"It seemed like the thing do to," Castiel replied sensibly, his brow furrowing in that particular way it did when he suspected Dean's bag of marbles was missing a few, "Every time you looked at my wounds, you seemed to become very upset, so-"

"So you slowed down your Angelic healing process in order to spend energy fixing your vessel," Dean interrupted sharply.

"That is one way to look at it, yes," Castiel confirmed mildly.

"Dammit, Cass!" Dean snapped.

"Cass!" Sam's voice startled Dean and he swung around to see his brother looking surprised and relieved as he entered the kitchen, "You're up."

"Yeah," Dean grumbled sarcastically, getting up and retrieving a bacon package from the fridge, "But the dumbass redid the paint job before fixing the engine."

Sam was more of a morning person than Dean was, but even that statement was a little too much for him first thing and he blinked, "Sorry, what?"

"Apparently our expressions of concern were annoying," Dean rephrased, "So Cass decided to prioritize making himself _look_ healthy over actually _being_ healthy."

Sam held up a hand in the 'wait' gesture, and made a lunge for the nearest clean coffee cup while Dean continued preparing to fry bacon. Once he had his coffee, Sam sat at the table, and took a deep breath before lowering his hand.

"Okay," he sighed, "_What_?"

"It's not that big a deal-" Cass began, but Dean interrupted.

"The hell it's not!" Dean exclaimed irritably, then turned to Sam, "See, Cass thinks we're more concerned about the state of his vessel than we are about _him_."

"That's not what I-" Cass tried, but Dean was still on a roll.

"He thinks that the _appearance_ of health is all we need to put our minds at ease, which is important because our being concerned about Cass's health is a major inconvenience to him."

"I didn't-" Cass persisted, but Dean wasn't finished.

"So he got enough energy in a pile to do something, and he decided to heal his vessel, leaving his powers -if my guess is right- on the fritz. To make _us_ feel better."

"Well your mood _has_ improved," Castiel commented dryly, and Dean glared at him, but the Angel was looking at the bowl of cereal again, "My cereal is extremely soggy."

"Now he's ignoring me," Dean complained, half considering throwing a strip of bacon at Cass to see if it would make a dent, but deciding that would be a waste of perfectly good bacon.

"It's too early in the morning for this," was the only thing Sam could think of to say.

For a few minutes, silence took hold of the kitchen. Aside from the delicious sound of frying bacon, that is.

"Castiel, you're up!"

Dean turned in time to observe that Mom was now entering the kitchen. She looked like she'd been up for awhile though. Or maybe she hadn't gone to bed in the first place. Who could tell?

"So I keep hearing," Cass replied, then sighed and looked up from his cereal bowl long enough to offer Mary a small smile, possibly as an apology for sounding annoyed.

It had gradually dawned on Dean that Cass treated Mom with an excess of delicacy that he had never shown Sam, Dean or anyone else. But until Mom had said as much, it had never occurred to him that his mother might be afraid of the Angel or that Cass -sensing that- went out of his way to treat her with an apparent excess of respect and kindness. Of course, it also had not occurred to him that -because she was so incredibly precious to Sam and Dean, no matter how they might feel toward her at any given moment- Mom was for all intents and purposes sacred to the Angel.

"Dean says Cass drained his powers to fix his vessel," Sam offered helpfully, looking over his shoulder at Mom, "And now he's pissed because... wait..." Sam looked at Cass, blinking and still bleary from sleep, "Why is he pissed?"

"That remains unclear," Cass answered, reluctantly pushing the cereal bowl aside.

"It's very simple," Dean cheerily explained to Cass, returning to the table with a plate of bacon, "I'm pissed because you're an idiot, and your priorities suck."

"Dean-" Sam sighed, rubbing his forehead, but Cass unexpectedly fired back before Sam could conjure up any words to go with his brother's name.

"If that's what it takes to be your friend, so be it."

Dean opened his mouth to retort, closed it again, frowned, took a breath, opened his mouth again, gave up and looked to Sam for help, but Sam just shook his head and shrugged. Cass gazed at him levelly.

"Dude, I think he's got you there," Sam informed him.

"Hey," Dean objected, "Just whose side are you on, anyway?"

"I didn't know we were choosing sides," Sam said.

"Yeah, there's my side, which is trying to encourage healthy, mentally sound life choices," Dean explained, "And then there's Cass's side, where the cereal is disgusting and gross, and it's apparently acceptable for your friends to leave you behind to die."

"Healthy life choices?" Sam queried with a laugh, looking at Dean's plate with raised eyebrows, "Says the man eating a plate of salted pork fat for breakfast."

"Hey now," Dean said, waving a strip of bacon at Sam like an accusing finger, "Bacon is a good and beautiful food, and I will not have my little brother making a mockery of it in our home."

Sam scoffed and shook his head, "You're impossible."

It was when he noticed his mother quietly smiling at him and Sam arguing that Dean realized Cass had been right. In showing the signs of improvement humans expected to see, he'd lifted some of their anxiety and fears, and in their relief they found a solace from the pain they each carried.

"You're gonna be okay eventually. Right, Cass?" Sam asked after a minute or so.

"Yes, Sam," Cass reassured him softly, "Eventually."

"Good," Sam said, not knowing how else to respond, so he repeated, "Good," and let it go at that.

"Merry Christmas, by the way," Cass said, peering again at the bowl he'd pushed aside, apparently to avoid making eye contact as he added, "I believe that's the correct phrase."

Sam smirked at the rather stunned expression on Dean's face, then covered his mouth before he could start laughing aloud. It took a few ticks for Dean to realize that Cass was right, both about the phrasing and the date on the calendar.

Mom, clearly enjoying the show, was nonetheless the first to respond to the sentiment, "Merry Christmas," which Sam and Dean then somewhat numbly echoed.

It felt weird to say. It felt weird that it was Christmas. It felt weird that they were actually celebrating the holiday. It felt weird that... well... it _all_ just felt weird. But also good. Really good.

"Oh, wait, that reminds me," Sam muttered, hopping up from the table and exiting the kitchen.

While he was gone, Dean opened one of the lower cabinets, pushed aside the clutter he'd put in the front of it and pulled out a wrapped object, which he set on the table.

Cass leaned towards Dean and murmured, "I already got you what you asked for."

Dean was surprised Cass had even heard him at that time, but he'd let Cass off the hook earlier anyway. There was an extra case of beer Dean had purchased on his last run which was to serve in place of a gift if anyone asked what the Angel had gotten for him.

Sam returned a moment later with a wrapped object of his own, smaller than Dean's, and box-shaped. He handed the object to Mom, and she took it with a smile that seemed suddenly shy. Sam sat staring at her for a long moment, then suddenly seemed to realize he was staring, and looked at the object Dean had left on the table.

"That for me?" Sam asked.

"It is," Dean replied, sitting back in his chair while Sam took the gift and unwrapped it.

"Coffee," Sam observed, sounding neither pleased nor displeased.

"Not just _any_ coffee," Dean pointed out, chewing on a strip of bacon even as he spoke, "It's that weird flavored garbage you like so much."

"Uh... thanks," Sam said rather uncertainly.

In the meantime, Mom had unwrapped her gift, which was contained in a small black box, which she also opened. What she saw obviously surprised her. She took it slowly out of the box. Broadly speaking, it was a necklace. More specifically, it was one with a black rope chain and a small white feather serving in place of a pendant.

"You got Mom a feather on a string?" Dean inquired, "Come on, man. At least I got you coffee."

"It's not just... _any_ feather," Sam told his brother, explaining, "It's an Angel feather, voluntarily given _before_ the Fall."

"You _asked_ Cass for a feather?" Dean demanded in some shock.

"So did you," Castiel pointed out before Sam could answer.

"I remember reading about these," Mom said before the boys could get back into the swing of arguing, her eyes on the feather, specifically the way it caught the light in an almost crystalline fashion, "A freely given feather has power that isn't there in a shed one. A given feather will protect the person who carries it from light curses and certain minor spells, right?"

"Yes," Castiel answered, "But only if the person who asked for the feather didn't know what it was good for beforehand."

"You _both_ asked Cass for feathers?" Mom asked, looking from Sam to Dean.

A little bit embarrassed, the boys looked at each other, then looked away, not saying anything.

"And you," she turned to Cass, "You gave them feathers?"

"Yes," Cass replied matter-of-factly.

"Just because they asked?" Mom persisted.

"Yes," Cass answered, clearly beginning to get a certain sense of awkwardness at the table, but not understanding why.

"And... are you going to know where this feather is?" Mom asked, evidently not entirely comfortable with the idea of wearing an Angelic tracking device.

"No," Cass replied, and his tone darkened for a moment, "When feathers are drawn out by a spell..." what a mild way to put it, "there's a... lingering connection with the Angel from which they were taken. It doesn't last, but is… well... it's very unsettling while it's there. That feather you're holding is entirely separate from me."

"That's still real weird, dude," Dean quietly told Sam, then looked at Cass, "Don't _you_ think it's weird?"

Cass's eyes narrowed in confusion as he replied, "Why would I find Sam giving his mother something that could protect her from the kind of harm Hunters regularly encounter weird?"

Well if it was put like that... but Dean shook his head, "It's like giving somebody a lock of your hair."

"A lock of my hair wouldn't protect Mary from curses, light or otherwise," Cass replied, though Dean couldn't entirely tell if he was being serious or deliberately obtuse.

"I think it's sweet," Mom informed them, and Sam positively glowed from the praise, then started to turn red from embarrassment, so he kind of ducked his head and stared at the wall for awhile.

Dean said, "So, Mom, didn't you get Cass anything?"

There was a moment of silence, before Cass answered the question himself.

"She did. She gave me everything that mattered."

Then Mom said, "And you didn't even have to sit on the tree."

"No," Cass agreed with a nod, "I didn't."

A look passed between Mom and Castiel as they spoke that Sam and Dean didn't understand the significance of. Sam and Dean looked at each other, perplexed. Neither woman nor Angel deigned to explain themselves. Mom smiled again, and put the necklace on.

"Okay, you two are never allowed to stay by yourselves in the Bunker again," Dean remarked.

Looking uncomfortable, Sam said, "Yeah, I second that."

"Why not?" Cass asked, genuinely baffled, "We were perfectly safe."

"Gah! No! Stop talking right now!" Sam exclaimed, and Cass obeyed, his confused look deepening.

"That," Dean gestured back and forth between Mom and Cass in reference to the look that had passed between them, "That whole... I don't know what happened, and I don't want to know... but I never want it to happen again because..." he couldn't bring himself to say it, instead concluding, "Just... no."

"I don't understand," Cass admitted.

Mom, desperately trying to maintain the facade of someone proper, covered her mouth with one hand to stop her laughter as it dawned on her what Sam and Dean had just read into the exchange. But she was also flushing with embarrassment, looking from one of her boys to the other. Dean was relieved to see he and Sam had completely misread the whole exchange. The only one not embarrassed was Cass, and that was because he didn't comprehend what had just happened.

For awhile they just drank coffee and ate bacon and looked at congealing cereal in milk, and reveled in the fact that they were all here, alive, and together. For just a moment, they were able to forget all the burdens, all the cares, all the grief and guilt and shame and confusion and uncertainty, and just be together, to just be happy. To think about nothing but affectionately picking on one another, and eating together as a family. For just a little while, they were free.

Blinking back the sudden and unexpected sentimentality moisture in his eyes, Dean said, "Merry Christmas, everybody."


End file.
